Jacob Frey/New York Times:
I’m the Mayor of Minneapolis. Trump Is Lying to You.
Blue cities like Minneapolis used to be able to count on good-faith partnerships with the federal government under both Republican and Democratic administrations. Under the Biden administration, our police officers worked with federal agents and the U.S. attorney’s office to bring down shooting rates in North Minneapolis. The effort wasn’t political — it was practical, and it continues to keep people safe.
But such partnerships, in both crisis and ordinary governance, are not the experience of big-city Democratic mayors under the Trump administrations. I learned that the hard way in 2020 during the civil unrest that came in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer. I’ll never forget the shock I felt when President Trump not only encouraged violence during the unrest, but denied federal approval for disaster relief.
x
The evidence is increasingly pointing to the probability that an ICE agent killed a woman after misreading her as a threat because he was distracted by his simultaneous effort to record her so he could upload her image to a facial recognition database.
— Radley Balko (@radleybalko.bsky.social) 2026-01-09T13:19:51.828Z
Seattle Times:
After Minneapolis ICE shooting, Ken Jennings speaks out
Jennings is one of many Seattleites calling for justice after Good’s death, adding to nationwide turmoil surrounding the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrant communities.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the ICE agent shot in self-defense and to protect fellow officers — a statement disputed by Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey.
Jennings has been embraced by Seattleites for his authentic and witty persona as a contestant and now host of one of America’s most beloved game shows. He has been outspoken on political issues in the past. In June, in a New York Times Op-Ed he penned about how trivia and a respect for facts might save our country, he pointed out that Noem had been unable to define habeas corpus — “a bedrock common-law protection under fire from the administration,” he wrote.
If you are asking why Ken Jennings, you are missing the point of the cultural resonance of the killing.
Lawrence Winnerman/Blue Amp has a provocative piece up. I don’t care to take sides or rank murders (murder is vile) but the oft-made comparison to Charlie Kirk is everywhere, and the piece covers it:
I Am Renee Good
If the soul of America comes down to choosing Charlie Kirk or Renee Good, the only answer is: I am Renee Good.
Renee Good was a queer mother of three. A poet. A neighbor. A human being who cared about her community and the people in it—especially the ones with less power, less safety, and fewer voices.
She lived compassion in a way that didn’t require a microphone or a donor list. And that compassion is almost certainly what put her in the path of federal agents who never should have been there, doing a job they were wildly unqualified to do.
She did not die because she was reckless.
She did not die because she was violent.
She did not die because she was dangerous.
She died because she cared.
She died because she believed that warning her neighbors—her fellow Minneapolis residents—that ICE was conducting raids was the right thing to do. Because she believed community mattered. Because she believed people deserved to know when armed agents of the federal government were sweeping through their lives.
Variety:
Tony Dokoupil Is Making ‘CBS Evening News’ All About Tony Dokoupil
Reporting from Minneapolis in the aftermath of an ICE agent shooting and killing 37-year-old mother Renée Good, Tony Dokoupil spoke for a bit over 90 seconds, in a garbled word salad that credited, and blamed, both sides of a political issue, if it said anything at all. Dokoupil acknowledged both opposition to ICE and “people who want to see our immigration laws enforced, legally and peacefully and with safety for all.” Calling both pro- and anti-ICE beliefs “deeply American sentiments,” Dokoupil asked viewers to “find a way to live with people who are genuinely different from us” and to “make things better and keep things decent.”
For fairness’ sake, I should state that I am not opposed to mutual respect, improving the nation, or the concept of decency. That’s because they’re airy, vague concepts, the kind of thing one says to position oneself as a moral arbiter despite not really having a stance. In attempting to extrapolate a grand statement from a horrifying and distressing news story, Dokoupil found the perfect Dokoupilian angle: Listen to me, even as I say nothing at all. The anchor who promised, as he prepared to launch his and his boss Bari Weiss’ reinvention of the newscast, to outdo Walter Cronkite had, in Minneapolis, a chance to emulate the late anchor. His speech, though, played more like one of Jerry Springer’s “Final Thoughts,” in which the talk-show host vapidly, but with feeling, exhorted his audience to “Take care of yourselves — and each other.”
Axios:
Americans sour on ICE amid immigration crackdown shootings
Americans now disapprove of ICE and support protests against the agency, according to a new poll conducted the same day a federal officer fatally shot a 37-year-old mother in Minneapolis.
Why it matters: President Trump's immigration crackdown is a cornerstone of his agenda, but ICE and Homeland Security tactics have repeatedly sparked protests and legal challenges. The agency's net approval fell 30 percentage points in a year.
Driving the news: A YouGov poll of over 2,600 U.S. adults on Jan. 7, found people don't like the way ICE operates.
- About 52% either somewhat or strongly disapproved of how ICE was handling its job, compared to 39% who somewhat or strongly approved.
- Just 27% said the agency's tactics were "about right" compared to 51% who called them "too forceful". Another 10% said they were "not forceful enough."
- A 44% plurality of adults approved of recent ICE protests, while 42% disapproved.
By the numbers: ICE had a +16 net approval rating last February at the start of Trump's second term, according to YouGov.
- That rating cratered over the year to -14 as the administration's immigration policies — including Stephen Miller's plan to arrest ideally 3,000 people per day — took hold.
Prem Thakker/zeteo:
US Authoritarian Regime Executes Unarmed Civilian as Ruler Grows More Erratic, Isolated
What if we wrote about events in Trump’s America in the way that Western media describe African and Middle Eastern countries?
In what diplomats and historians of yore dubbed the “shining city on a hill,” the United States of America now appears to be anything but. The nation is a powder keg.
Regime ruler Donald Trump is mired in yet another scandal, as shocking footage captured his agents executing an unarmed 37-year-old civilian and mother of three in broad daylight. The erratic behavior of the land’s embattled sovereign has ratcheted up as he continues to further withdraw himself from public life, and his nation from the global stage.
Alex Burness/Bolts:
Americans by Name, Punished for Believing It
In a small Alaska town, American Samoans face prosecution for voting in the only country they’ve ever known. They live in a limbo, created by colonial expansion, that now confuses even public officials—and has made them a new target for policing voter fraud.
Unbeknownst to Smith at the time, she had no right to vote in Whittier elections, much less run for office. Though she was born in a U.S. territory, and has a U.S. passport and Social Security number, she is not a U.S. citizen.
American Samoa is the only U.S. state or territory where people are born without automatic citizenship, and without the right to vote in state, federal, and most local elections anywhere outside of American Samoa.
Unlike people born in the other U.S. territories of Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoans are classified simply as “U.S. nationals”—a sort of limbo state that acknowledges they are American by birth, but still denied the full rights and privileges of citizenship.
Even though they pay taxes, owe “allegiance” by law to the United States, and can join or be drafted into the military—American Samoans have long served in and died for the U.S. military at exceptionally high rates—non-citizen American Samoan nationals cannot register to vote, run for office, serve on juries, or hold any job requiring citizenship. Unless they can claim citizenship through a parent or grandparent, American Samoan nationals must apply for citizenship as though they were immigrants. That process can be costly, confusing, and long.
As non-citizen nationals, they exist in a formal underclass of democracy that precludes them from, for one, running for a local school board.
2020-22 were COVID years. 2025 is all Trump.
Oh, and the Epstein files need to be released.
