The article recounts the killing of Alex Jeffrey Pretti in Minneapolis after DHS agents confronted him while he filmed them on a public street, describing video evidence of agents beating him, firing at close range, and leaving him dead. It argues that DHS and Trump administration officials then tried to control the scene and public narrative by blocking local investigators, leaking claims that Pretti was an armed threat, and labeling him a terrorist despite accounts that he legally carried a firearm and did not brandish it. Linking the incident to a recent fatal shooting of another Minneapolis resident, the author contends these actions reflect a deliberate policy of state violence and impunity that signals an authoritarian break from the rule of law. The piece urges the public to keep pa...

The Trump administration moved to curb expansion of body cameras for ICE officers and cut oversight staffing across three DHS watchdog offices even as it surged immigration enforcement operations into cities like Minneapolis, where clashes included the fatal shootings of U.S. citizen protesters. Bystander video of the incidents has challenged official narratives that portrayed those killed as aggressors, highlighting the accountability role that officer-worn cameras can play. Although ICE began a body-camera pilot in 2024 and CBP has thousands of cameras, the administration sought to freeze ICE expansion, reduce program staffing from 22 to three, and did not require agents to use the devices, while also placing hundreds of oversight staffers on paid leave. The staffing cuts sharply reduced...

The article describes tense confrontations in Minneapolis as residents swarm ICE convoys, sometimes facing arrests and tear gas, while trying to prevent raids from spilling into their neighborhoods and schools. Beneath the street clashes is a largely leaderless but highly organized network of “protectors” trained as legal observers and in role-play scenarios, coordinating through encrypted apps and tactics developed from post–George Floyd community defense efforts. The movement has broadened beyond traditional activists, drawing in parents, teachers, clergy, and suburban residents, especially after the killing of Renee Good, and it has prompted schools and communities to quietly prepare for possible ICE actions. Even as participants emphasize restraint and constitutional values, the escala...

The author says he long avoided calling Trump a fascist because the term is vague, overused, and Trump initially seemed better described as an authoritarian patrimonialist treating the state like personal property without a coherent ideology. He argues that over the past year Trump’s project has shifted from self-serving rule toward something more doctrinal and operationally fascist, citing expansionist ambitions, claims of unchecked power, alignment with the global far right, and the creation of coercive forces and rights violations. He frames fascism as a constellation of traits and contends the total pattern now fits: deliberate demolition of civic norms, open glorification of violence, a “might makes right” worldview, and the politicization of law enforcement to punish enemies and prot...

Stephen Colbert discusses a deadly Customs and Border Protection shooting of Alex Preddy, a legally armed ICU nurse and protester, arguing that video evidence contradicts the Trump administration’s claims and criticizing officials who frame agents as the “victims.” He highlights the family’s account and calls for accountability, noting backlash over DHS investigating itself and the decision to involve the FBI, while tying the incident to broader concerns about immigration enforcement, protest suppression, and government legitimacy. The episode also contrasts federal force with Minnesotans’ community-centered response—mass peaceful demonstrations, faith leaders’ arrests, and National Guard support—before Colbert pivots to introduce guest Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro.

The article argues that President Trump’s reported nighttime seizure of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro reflects a broader pattern of personalist leadership, in which foreign policy is driven by a leader’s private fixations rather than institutional deliberation or coherent national interest. It contends that personalist rule has returned at the top of the international system, with the United States, China under Xi Jinping, and Russia under Vladimir Putin all increasingly centralized around insulated leaders surrounded by loyalists. Drawing on historical and contemporary examples, the authors say personalist regimes are more prone to miscalculation, aggression, and needless conflict because they hollow out checks, distort information, and encourage overconfidence. They warn that having multipl...

Journalist Andrea Pitzer argues that the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, driven by Stephen Miller and carried out by ICE, shows defining features of a concentration camp system: mass detention of civilians based on identity, undertaken as an end run around due process and normal legal constraints. She points to raids, alleged abuses and killings, and the rapid expansion of large detention facilities as evidence of an escalating infrastructure that could surpass the scale of the U.S. prison system. Pitzer links today’s tactics and propaganda to historical models, including Nazi-era dehumanization, and says the goal is to terrorize vulnerable communities as a step toward broader authoritarian control. She also contends that years of bipartisan demonization of immigrants and ina...

The episode unpacks a DHS social media post that repurposes a Werner Herzog penguin scene to frame Trump and authoritarian policies as a heroic, frontier-style break from the “herd,” suggesting present brutality is a necessary march toward a distant national renewal. It contrasts that propaganda reading with the film’s context—where the penguin is effectively doomed—and argues this reveals a broader right-wing political aesthetic of nihilism: a politics driven by chaos, revenge, and the stripping of the future rather than any coherent, achievable ideal. Along the way, it notes how the penguin symbol has been adopted internationally and uses it to examine how states and movements project meaning onto nature to justify power and violence.

The World Health Organization has said the UK has lost its measles elimination status after widespread transmission in 2024, including 3,600 suspected cases and more than 1,000 confirmed. The decision reflects outbreaks that accelerated from late 2023 and vaccination rates falling below the 95% level needed for herd immunity, with uptake at 92% for a first dose and just under 85% for a second by the end of 2024. Health officials warned that measles can return quickly when uptake drops and said the NHS is trying to boost coverage by offering the second MMRV dose earlier at an 18-month appointment and providing catch-up vaccinations. Experts also called for urgent action to address low-uptake areas, improve access to services such as GPs and home immunisation, and counter misinformation abou...

The article argues that modern conservatives, particularly under Trump, selectively invoke the Founders while embracing executive actions that the Constitution was designed to restrain. It draws parallels between British troop occupation in pre-revolution Boston and a recent federal immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, emphasizing how domestic militarized enforcement helped shape the Second, Third, and Fourth Amendments and limits on presidential power. Citing reported deaths, a secret memo allegedly allowing warrantless home entries, and the handling of a Minneapolis shooting, it contends the administration is eroding constitutional protections, obstructing accountability, and using force to intimidate dissent. The author presents archival Boston newspaper accounts alongside Minnesota’s ...

Top tech CEOs have continued courting President Trump through high-profile appearances, gifts, and donations, even as his administration faces backlash for the killing of Alex Pretti by masked federal officers in Minneapolis and for officials’ disputed account of what happened. While these leaders have largely stayed quiet, employees and a few prominent figures in the industry have urged CEOs to publicly condemn the violence, exposing a growing divide between executives and the broader workforce. The article argues that the renewed closeness is largely transactional, tied to business benefits such as relaxed AI regulation and tariff exemptions, and shows little sign of easing as elections near. It warns that betting on influence over a volatile leader could backfire, leaving tech executive...

The article argues that the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis resemble George Floyd’s death in location and public outrage but differ in that today federal agents operate with impunity, with the Trump administration blocking accountability and openly treating law and truth as tools of power. It traces this shift to the unresolved legacy of January 6, the weakening of institutions that once constrained the presidency, and a governing style that threatens opponents and dismisses constitutional limits. With legal remedies narrowing and the risk of violent backlash rising, the piece contends that conventional protest is insufficient and that organized, disciplined nonviolent resistance is the most viable path. It points to Minneapolis residents reviving community networks t...

A study in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that 38 of 82 CDC databases that were updated at least monthly in early 2025 had their updates paused without notice by October 2025, and only one resumed by December. The freezes disproportionately affected vaccination surveillance: 33 of the 38 stalled databases contained vaccine-related data, while none of the databases still being updated did. Researchers and an accompanying editorial warn that missing, current data undermines outbreak detection and targeted vaccination efforts, with concerns heightened by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s anti-vaccine record and broader CDC staffing and budget disruptions. The Department of Health and Human Services said the changes reflect routine data management rather than political direction ...

Fringe Alberta separatists from the Alberta Prosperity Project have held multiple meetings with US state department officials and are seeking further talks to pitch a $500bn credit facility to support the province if an independence referendum succeeds. US officials say such meetings are routine and involved no commitments, and Treasury sources indicated no awareness or intent to engage on the proposed financing. The contacts come as US-Canada relations worsen under President Donald Trump, and critics in Alberta and Ottawa warn the outreach could fuel perceptions of foreign interference. While polling suggests about three in 10 Albertans would vote to separate, the movement remains marginal, opposed by Premier Danielle Smith, and has faced significant organized pushback.

The FBI executed a search warrant at the Fulton County Elections Hub & Operations Center in Georgia in connection with the 2020 election, describing the action only as court-ordered activity. Reports indicate agents are seeking custody of 2020 election ballots stored at the facility, which has housed election equipment since opening in 2023. The search follows a recent Justice Department lawsuit alleging Fulton County failed to comply with a subpoena for various ballot materials and related digital files from the 2020 general election. The development comes amid Trump’s continued claims of a stolen election, after the Georgia case once pursued by District Attorney Fani Willis was derailed and later dismissed.

The article argues that the Trump administration’s “Operation Metro Surge” in Minneapolis, which has reportedly resulted in two deaths, has been partially scaled back only for political optics while federal immigration agencies continue expanding into a lawless internal security force. Citing repeated court-order violations and efforts to sideline or block state and local investigations, it contends that the administration is escalating precisely because it does not expect or accept normal constraints tied to future transfers of power. The author warns that once potential state-level crimes are implicated—beyond the reach of presidential pardons—the incentive may shift from avoiding abuse to clinging to power to prevent accountability. This dynamic, they argue, could make the second year o...

The article describes an FBI search and seizure of more than 700 boxes of records, computers, and ballots from a Fulton County, Georgia election office tied to the 2020 vote, as Trump amplified debunked fraud claims about that election. It argues that while those allegations have been repeatedly investigated and rejected, the more significant change is that Trump now appears able to direct federal law enforcement toward his grievances regardless of factual basis. The piece contends this is not only about punishing perceived enemies from 2020 but also about intimidating election officials and shaping the competitive elections of 2026 and 2028. It warns that with fewer institutional constraints and a more compliant Justice Department leadership, Trump’s ongoing effort to undermine election l...

The federal government has recorded a $102.4 million purchase of an 825,000-square-foot warehouse near Hagerstown, Maryland, the first confirmed acquisition in a proposed network of 23 large immigration detention facilities. A related DHS design and due-diligence contract awarded on a sole-source basis to KPB Services LLC, a subsidiary of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, has unraveled after tribal leadership denounced the work, fired the officials who negotiated it, and said it exited the agreement, leaving the project in limbo. Locally, Washington County officials say they cannot block a federal project and have curtailed public participation amid disruptions at meetings, while residents raise unresolved concerns about water capacity, safety codes, and how the site will be converted in...

JVL and Sarah Longwell react to what they describe as escalating authoritarian behavior by the Trump administration, focusing on the arrest of journalist Don Lemon, the use of inflammatory rhetoric and social-media intimidation from officials, and the broader goal of exhausting and chilling civic and press activity. They discuss the shooting of protester Alex Preddy, contrasting policing standards and incentives around armed demonstrations, and Sarah shares insights from focus groups with pro- and anti-Trump police officers about training, accountability, and how the administration’s messaging affects trust and safety. The conversation also critiques perceived capitulation and restructuring in major media outlets like CBS News and The Washington Post, touches on the release of Epstein-rela...

ICE and the Department of Homeland Security are moving to convert large, mostly vacant industrial warehouses in 23 communities into immigrant detention sites that could collectively hold up to 80,000 people, supporting a hub-and-spoke system aimed at speeding deportations. As proposed locations have become public, residents and local officials have raised concerns about humane conditions and whether buildings with issues like inadequate cooling, flood risk, and limited water or sewer capacity can be brought up to federal detention standards on ICE’s timeline. DHS has offered few specifics, though it says new funding will expand detention space, and it has already bought warehouses in Williamsport, Maryland, and Surprise, Arizona, that it expects to begin using by April. Communities have re...