Let’s start with a quick review of the latest news from Minneapolis, a city under siege.
“Man shot during Minneapolis immigration crackdown has died, hospital record shows” - AP
“Protesters Confront Trump ICE Agents After New Shooting: ‘We Can See Your Face B*TCH! F*CK YOU!’”
Via Mediaite: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said he had been in contact with the White House about the new “horrific shooting.”
“I just spoke with the White House after another horrific shooting by federal agents this morning. Minnesota has had it. This is sickening,” he wrote in a statement. “The President must end this operation. Pull the thousands of violent, untrained officers out of Minnesota. Now.”
US immigration agents detain two-year-old Minnesota girl: ‘depravity beyond words’ | The Guardian
Via the Guardian: The two-year-old girl detained by federal agents in Minneapolis with her father on 22 January. Photograph: Handout photo, published with permission from the family’s attorney Federal immigration agents detained a two-year-old girl and her father in Minneapolis on Thursday and transported them to Texas, according to court records and the family’s lawyers.
The father, identified in court filings as Elvis Joel TE, and his daughter were stopped and detained by officers around 1pm when they were returning home from the store. By the evening, a federal judge had ordered the girl be released by 9.30pm. But federal officials instead put both of them on a plane heading to a Texas detention center.1
Minneapolis FBI Agent Becomes 11th Federal Official to Resign Over Renee Good Shooting
Via MPR: Minnesota school districts say they have verified incidents in which children, parents and school staff members have been pulled into vehicles by masked agents or detained in other ways.
Federal immigration agents have broken windows and dragged occupants out of their vehicles. They have forcefully tackled people to the ground. They have pushed and shoved protesters, and deployed pepper spray directly in their faces.
For weeks, residents have documented the scenes unfolding as federal agents pursue President Trump’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota. The videos have circulated widely and intensified outrage and fear among many Minnesotans.
Via NYT: Clockwise from top left: Monica Bicking, via Storyful; Status Coup News, via Storyful; Brendan Gutenschwager, via Storyful; and Level Up with Gene and Jay, via Facebook 100 clergy arrested at airport protest as Minnesotans strike against ICE
Meanwhile…
As the chaos and violence mounted, the Heritage Foundation sent out a fund-raising email with the subject line: “You can help increase deportations.” From my inbox:
Dear Fellow Conservative….
Your generous support will help The Heritage Foundation create policies and strategies that will increase deportations and remove roadblocks placed by activist judges….
Sincerely,
Kevin D. Roberts, Ph.D.
President, The Heritage Foundation
P.S. Please help fuel the largest deportation operation in American history by activating your Heritage Foundation membership for 2026
To which I replied: “With all due respect2, F*** all the way off.”
Happy Saturday! Note to readers:
I know that many of you feel overwhelmed by (waves hands) all of this. There are a lot of claims on your time and your resources. I get it.
More than 90 percent of you read everything we write and post for free — and I want to keep it that way, because you really can’t defend democracy from behind a paywall.
But I want you to know that I am deeply grateful for those of you who have become paid subscribers, because you make it possible for me to stay on this hamster wheel of crazy.
Today’s Podcast
On this weekend’s “To the Contrary” podcast, I’m joined by my good friend, NYT columnist David French. We discuss the violent occupation of Minneapolis and the drift toward what could feel like Civil War. As you might expect, we also break down Trump’s weird week in Davos, Trump’s “Board of Peace,” — and our message to the people of Greenland.
Subscribers can listen to an ad-free version right here… or you can watch on YouTube / Listen (and subscribe) on Apple/ Spotify / iHeart / RSS Feed
Some of the highlights:
"We are creating the conditions for a monumental crisis."
One violent incident away…
“The most lethal nuclear power in the world is already in the grips of a deranged person….”
Saturday dogs
More polar vortex flashbacks. Moses, Auggie and Pete prepare to go out into the frozen tundra of Wisconsin.
Irina Vaynerman, one of the family’s lawyers, told the Guardian late Friday afternoon that immigration officials had since flown both of them back to Minnesota and released the two-year-old into the custody of her mother. The father remains detained in Minnesota, she said.
“The horror is truly unimaginable,” Vaynerman said. “The depravity of all of this is beyond words.”
Court records and the attorney’s accounts paint a harrowing picture of the toddler and father’s detention and the frantic efforts that followed to get her released from custody and reunited with her mother. The detention came two days after US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained five-year-old Liam Ramos in Minnesota, in a case that has prompted international backlash and increased scrutiny of the Trump administration’s aggressive crackdown in the region.
By which I mean, “none.”
