There is so much to cover, and no doubt I have missed a great deal. Before we get into it all there is a vitally important point that needs to be first made. There is an orchestrated campaign of disinformation now in play that is designed to Neutralise the moral shock of the moment.
As an example, Trump’s Christian nationalist propaganda machine is rallying support for ICE in a very deliberate and malicious manner. Right Wing watch have listed some of the many examples from this past week
Via the above …
- Longtime religious-right activist Gary Bauer promoted the evidence-free claim by the Department of Homeland Security that murdered Veterans Affairs ICU nurse Alex Pretti “wanted to…massacre law enforcement.” On Monday he tweeted, “What’s happening in Minneapolis is a well-organized insurrection!”
- Dominionist and MAGA activist Sean Feucht has been actively promoting official pro-ICE narratives on social media, declaring that we are in a “propaganda war.”
- Right-wing evangelical writer Megan Basham insisted that activists defending their neighbors from ICE brutality “are the one’s exhibiting tyranny.” After millions of American had seen video of the unjustifiable killing of Pretti with their own eyes, Basham argued that describing ICE as executing people is “irresponsible and dishonest.”
- Christian nationalist and MAGA insider William Wolfe snidely responded “woke” when a Christian college professor described the statement from Alex Pretti’s family as “heartbreaking.” Wolfe has energetically defended ICE and promoted false claims that Pretti was holding a gun when ICE agents tackled him.
- Eric Metaxas, a pundit with a cultish devotion to Trump, declared, “Alex Pretti was a soldier of the Marxist left” which he said is “at war w/WETHEPEOPLE.” In another tweet he described resistance to ICE as “an attack on the nation” and said we are in a civil war.
- Propagandist “prophet” Lance Wallnau wrote Saturday, “I don’t care how much the news keeps twisting this to make Trump look bad. The demons are manifesting in Minnesota because there’s a deliverance service going on.” He also basically blamed Pretti for being killed, claiming falsely that Pretti was “violently resisting.”
- White Christian nationalist Stephen Turley has celebrated the prosecution of anti-ICE activists as part of Trump’s “war on woke,” Trump’s supposed “Greenland Victory,” and the president’s ludicrous “Board of Peace.”
This is a a coordinated narrative pattern. It tells you a lot about where parts of the religious right and MAGA ecosystem are right now.
None of the figures within the above list are engaging with evidence, facts, or even moral ambiguity. They are doing something else entirely, they are policing the story. The goal is to make any challenge to state violence morally illegitimate before it can be discussed.
Facts no longer matter, courts no longer matter, and human suffering no longer matters. Questioning power is heresy. This is theocratic authoritarianism, and historically that always ends badly.
Calling Minneapolis an “insurrection” while insisting Jan. 6 was not is not confusion, it is intentional inversion.
Words like insurrection, tyranny, civil war, and law and order, are being weaponized so that:
- state violence = order
- civil resistance = rebellion
- grief = propaganda
- solidarity = Marxism
Once that inversion sticks, any protest can be met with extreme force and still framed as righteous in the minds of the gullible.
What stands out is how quickly and uniformly these figures snapped into alignment.
Different personalities, different platforms, but the exact same script:
- Pretti was dangerous
- ICE was justified
- Protesters are the real threat
- The nation is under attack
- God is on our side
That’s a sign of movement discipline, not independent thought. It suggests they understand that the legitimacy of state violence is the keystone holding everything else together.
This is how moral shock is neutralized
Video of an unjustifiable killing has created a moral rupture: for many it is a wakeup call, a “wait, something is wrong here” moment.
What you’re watching is a counter-shock strategy: Flood the zone with certainty, Demonize the victims, Smear sympathizers, Elevate fear, and Invoke God, war, and apocalypse.
The aim is to prevent MAGA from even experiencing doubt. Doubt is the real enemy, it always has been. Remember that doubting Thomas simply wanted to see empirical evidence and yet he is framed as the bad guy.
Why does this moment matter?
When religious leaders and political activists deny observable reality, celebrate prosecutions of dissidents, openly frame fellow citizens as enemies, and speak casually about civil war, then you’re no longer in normal partisan politics. You’re in pre-justification mode. This is laying the moral groundwork for eve harsher repression.
The temperature is rising because these influential voices and many many others on the right are actively turning up the dial.
This isn’t about Alex Pretti alone. He’s being turned into a symbolic warning: If you resist, we will not only kill you, we will also erase your humanity, smear your memory, and call it holy.
The pushback by naming and connecting these patterns actually matters, because authoritarian movements thrive on people treating each incident as isolated.
Are people Falling for it?
While some are, the good news is that many are not.
Via Robert Reich (from here) …
One friend tells me he’s lived in Minneapolis for 40 years and has never felt the city as closely bound together. “I think we’ve discovered the real meaning of community,” he wrote.
A former student says that despite the sub-zero weather, he and everyone he knows have been involved in organizing against ICE and for one another. “This goes far deeper than a protest,” he says. “It’s a new way to live here.”
This isn’t limited to Minneapolis. I’m hearing from friends and former students across America who are seeing something similar where they live.
“You wouldn’t believe how this community has come together,” writes an old friend from Portland, Maine. “I’ve lived here for more than 20 years and don’t recall a time when we felt as united.”
Both tipping points may be true. We’re tipping into Trump’s fascist police state at the same time as we’re tipping into a new era of solidarity. The second may be the consequence of the first.
All I can say with any confidence is that the events of the last weeks are changing America profoundly.
What comes next?
I don’t buy the predictions of a second civil war. I think Americans are better than that. If polls are to be believed, most oppose the way Trump has been implementing his immigration policies. Most don’t accept his fascist police state.
America may be tipping into that police state, nonetheless.
But we’re also tipping into unity against it. We’re moving into a solidarity that could give new meaning to the ideal of self-government – a system of, by, and for the people.
The Trump administration might indeed instil fear, but the reactions in play also bring a green deal of hope.
OK, let’s move on to now what some of the notable events from the past week.
There was a massive Epstein update
They accidentally revealed too much, and have to quickly kill some it …
Permit me to zoom in on what they rapidly pulled down when they realised what they had revealed …
No prosecutions, no justice, no closure. Just quick accidental reveals that are once again rapidly covered up.
There is no avoiding the observation that Trump is a deeply sick and perverted individual …
So now we get yet another distraction to try and hide all this – the threat of an utterly pointless war with Iran.
What is also very notable is that Elon, who claimed he had never been part of it all, turns out to have been part of it all …
Do you remember Elon claiming that he had refused an invitation to the island?
Well here he is in the files, begging to come to the island …
Trump threatened 12 year old with murder to keep her silent …
If you’re upset at the prospect of a sitting POTUS sticking fingers in kids’ vaginas to test their tightness—an allegation in the Files that was never properly investigated—or the world’s richest man Elon Musk begging to be invited to Epstein’s island, my God, you don’t know the half of all this.
EPSTEIN SURVIVORS: “This is a betrayal of the very people this process is supposed to serve… This is not over. We will not stop until the truth is fully revealed and every perpetrator is finally held accountable.”
Alex Pretti
A pivotal moment this past week has been the response to the murder of Alex Pretti by the state, and then the torrent of lies about him that followed from senior officials.
What happened was not just the brutal slaughter, but also the insight of the totally inhuman actions of the ICE terrorists involved …
The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents border patrol officers at the National Border Patrol Council, calls on Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller to resign or be fired.
As always, it is the political cartoonists who rise to the moment.
Clay Bennett – Originally published on 6/2/2020 (after the killing of George Floyd), this cartoon seems all too relevant again today.
Cathy Wilcox – Bad guys with guns.
De-escalation?
There has been a claim that there has been a de-escalation. That is a total lie.
Don’t fall for it, the claim is just another con …
Meanwhile the Senate Dems are mostly going to do what they always do and completely fail to cease the moment – they need to be replaced by people who have a spine.
It is all about Blackmail to rig the election
Make no mistake, it was never ever about law and order or immigrants. The real game plan is to rig the election …
Rob Rogers – Trump’s DOJ is threatening to continue the ICE crackdown if Minnesota doesn’t give up personal voter data that could be weaponized by the president and his allies to make false claims of voter fraud. #ICE #Minneapolis #AlexPretti #murder #ReneeNicoleGood #Trump #DOJ #VoterRolls
Nick Anderson – Pam Bondi sent a letter to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on Saturday after the shooting demanding, among other things, they “turn over the state’s voter registration records to the Trump administration.”
Trump Administration is also now Arresting Journalists
The headline below needs to be corrected. He was arrested for reporting the truth …
We’re running out of “hills to die on”. Pick one quick or we’re done for …
Kristi Noem
So basically Albert Speer’s defense at Nuremberg …
Dave Whamond – Kristi Noem on the way out?
But Then …
Censorship on Social Media
Political Violence – Incited by Führer Trump
Führer Trump got exactly what he’s been inciting every day on Truth Social, where he libels Congresswoman Omar (D-MN) as a criminal who should be imprisoned or something “worse”. If you don’t think Trump wants all his political critics killed you haven’t been paying any attention at all.
Words have consequences …
Minutes after getting praised by corporate media for claiming—without evidence—that he’d deescalate his attacks on Minnesota, Trump libeled Congresswoman Omar, she was attacked in public by an assailant spraying an unknown substance, and the stochastic terrorist-in-chief responded to that with this:
Rep. @maxwellfrost.bsky.social & @repilhan.bsky.social attacked 2 days apart As Trump & Vance continue to incite, their supporters are feeling emboldened …
Whose fault is it? – apparently it is now “Not me”
Suddenly republicans have forgotten what the constitution says …
Republican state senator in FL …
Stephen Miller blaming Bovino. Noem blaming Miller. Some Republican senators blaming Noem …
Sounds like people inside the Trump admin want to save Noem and dump Miller …
Rigging Elections
This was also yet another bombshell moment.
This past week the FBI raided Fulton County, Georgia’s central election hub, looking for materials to fuel President Donald Trump’s 2020 election conspiracy theories.
Lurking in the shadows was Gabbard, a presence that suggestsTrump is set to argue foreign interference caused his loss in Georgia.
Election law experts are questioning the legality of the FBI’s unprecedented seizure of the ballots. There is widespread doubt the records will produce any evidence of prosecutable criminal activity. But, the experts warn, 2020 isn’t the investigation’s real target – 2026 is.
In another alarming development, North Carolina’s GOP-led election board is considering a plan to label certain voters as “presumptive noncitizens,” potentially purging them from the rolls. It’s the latest move in an effort to politicize voter list maintenance and undermine election confidence.
Republican lawmakers also unveiled the Make Elections Great Again Act. This is a new bill that would impose the most extreme federal voting restrictions in history. The measure would go beyond the SAVE Act by imposing strict voter ID requirements, mandating voter roll purges, banning mail voting and more.
The very concept of a free and fair mid-term election in 2026 is becoming deeply doubtful.
In 2024 the choice on the ballot was “constitution” or “criminal”, the nation chose “criminal”, and so now we all reap the consequences of that decision in so many ways.
Clay Jones – I miss the good old days, like during the Biden administration, when the FBI enforced the law instead of being flying monkeys doing a villain’s bidding. #GeorgiaElections #Trump #TrumpLost #2020Election #FBI
Corruption on a truly epic scale
- Link to article here.
- Quote: “Trump has laid the groundwork for “taking over” and “owning” Gaza in a sweetheart deal that will enrich his family members and associates. Undoubtedly, similar plans are in the works now for Venezuela as Trump seeks to extend his “ownership” of yet another people’s land and resources through his “Donroe Doctrine.”
- Link to article here
- Quote: “Last Thursday, seven Democrats in the US House of Representatives voted with nearly all Republicans to pass a multibillion-dollar DHS funding bill. Pretti’s killing has increased pressure on all senators to reject it. While immigration agents’ deadly and illegal actions have fueled calls to “abolish ICE,” some lawmakers are demanding reforms at the agency and across the department. Pointing to Cheney’s findings, anti-monopoly lawyer Basel Musharbash said: “This is fucking insane. What reforms are supposed to fix an agency that commits 2,300 adjudicated constitutional violations in just six months? And those are just the ones that made it to court!”
Multiple layers of Lunacy and utter incompetence
In the middle of a Depression he would be saying how great everything is and how much we should thank him.
ICE Gestapo updates
In a blistering ruling, a Bush-appointed conservative federal judge said that ICE “has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence.” Congress must not give one more cent to this rogue agency …
STAR TRIBUNE: “No Humanity” in the detention centers. Overcrowded cells where immigrants “have to take turns lying down” Private prisons raking in billions while they cut costs, feed them little, ignore health issues. All in our name. – www.startribune.com/no-humanity-…
Straight up Gestapo shit …
MINNESOTA: Mexican immigrant hospitalized with a shattered skull and broken face — Trump’s ICE goons claim he “purposefully ran into a brick wall” NURSE: “NO WAY” apnews.com/article/immi…
Nick Anderson – Administrative Warrants
Healthcare Lunacy
Yes, even more lunacy this past week.
The US is doing its very best to ensure that there will be a Bird Flu Pandemic …
Governance by applause lines where policy is imaginary and accountability optional…
- He’s been promising health care “in 2 weeks” for 10 years now
Christian Nationalist Kooks
The nuttier right-wing religious fanatics within the MAGA cult are as always doing their thing, and so here are some more samples.
Well yes, I opened with examples of this, and so here are even more.
Alex Pretti reactions
Kyle Langford reacted to the killing of Alex Pretti by calling for law and order as exemplified by fascist leader Benito Mussolini.
- Framing anti-ICE protests as equivalent to an insurrection (as some commentators have tried) demonstrates a degree of crass stupidity that is truly jaw-dropping.
- In a democracy, citizens can, and should, express dissent and push for accountability.
- Irony Alert: Kyle is seeking to be democratically elected as the GOP Gov of CA, yet consistently demonstrates that he leans into fascism and is opposed to democracy.
Eric Metaxas declares that Pretti “was a soldier of the Marxist left.“
- Fact Check: Mr Pretti’s parents and peers spoke publicly about his empathy and commitment to helping others, not any ideological allegiance to Marxism … but hey, this is Metaxas who claims to follow Jesus, yet as far as he is concerned Jesus himself was a woke Marxist.
- What this latest rhetoric tells you is that “Christian Intellectual” Metaxas’s willingness to lie so openly leads to the conclusion that anything he says about anything should by default be assumed to be a lie.
- Calling for a city to be “made an example of” so others fall in line is not law-and-order language — it’s authoritarian intimidation. It abandons individual guilt, due process, and proportionality, and replaces them with terror as a teaching tool. That’s the logic of fascists, not democracies.
- Most telling is his demand that Trump “stop trying to be reasonable.” In other words: abandon restraint, abandon persuasion, abandon legitimacy — rule through fear. That’s an admission that the argument can’t be won on facts or consent, only through coercion.
Jason Rapert is outraged by former President Bill Clinton’s response to Pretti’s killing: “You are one of the most corrupt and profane men to ever be elected to public office. This is nothing but an effort for you to once again deflect and dodge being held accountable for your own lifetime of misdeeds. SHAME ON YOU BILL CLINTON.“
- Bill’s “crime” is that he got a blow job (consenting adults) and then lied about it.
- The most blatantly corrupt President is Trump, a guy that Rapert openly supports.
- Meanwhile, this ad hominem is Rapert ducking any actual discourse on the issue and is failing to directly engage … because he can’t, he is that inept and incompetent.
Jon Miller thinks that ICE “should be allowed to shoot whomever they please as long as they continue to do God’s work.“
- Which specific god does Miller worship, is it perhaps the obnoxious orange Nero sitting in the Oval Office?
- You and I know that nobody is above the law, despite what the corrupt SCOTUS might try to declare.
- Quote: “For years, the trio of Christian nationalist pseudo-historians at WallBuilders have been radical Second Amendment absolutists, with founder David Barton asserting over and over again that the Constitution protects not just an individual right to own guns, but that is places absolutely “no limitation” on an individual’s right to own “whatever you can get your hands,” including tanks, fighter jets, and even nuclear weapons. “We need the ability to protect and defend ourselves against [the] government,” … now suddenly with their favourite orange fascist in government running masked terrorists murdering people, they suddenly have an exception to their stance. – The degree of hypocrisy is off the charts and up into the stratosphere.
- You know how this works and can see it clearly – As far as they are concerned, it’s not tyranny if it is their fascists that are in charge.
- The evangelical mullahs of MAGA must be so jealous of Iran it hurts.
- This guy is so stupid that he does not grasp that it is him that is playing on team evil. If he wishes to view actual darkness then all he needs to do is look in a f**king mirror.
Meanwhile others continue promote ignorance as a virtue
Joshua Haymes says that “Darwinian evolution is fake and gay.“
- We can no doubt now look forward to a paper by him being published within a credible peer-reviewed journal that lays out the evidence for his scientific hypothesis … right?
- Meanwhile his alternative palaeolithic proposal that is firmly resting on a bed of superstition is that a god did it all by magic just 6,000 years ago.
To be clear Joshua Haymes is not a good guy with a few quirky beliefs. This past week he also explained that he supports jailing people for posting social media content that he dislikes: “I’m in favor of using political power to tamp down on evil, degenerate, anti-social behavior.“
- Not a fan of free speech then.
There really is no ducking the observation that Christianity is being distorted and abused by some truly vile and deeply obnoxious individuals into something that is dark, superstitious, sinister, oppressive, fundamentally fascist, and filled with intolerance, violence and hatred. All thoughts regarding compassion, tolerance, and basic human decency, and the actual teachings of Jesus have been obliterated and replaced with something deeply dark and malicious.
Weirdest of the Weird
Well yes, the winner is as always Joel.
Joel Webbon tells Jews that they are not allowed to quote from the Old Testament because it belongs to Christians and that “God does not hear your prayers.“
- As always, his stupidity is oh so very transparent, but permit me the luxury of spelling it out with crayons so that even Joel can understand it. Claiming that Jews are “not allowed” to quote the Old Testament because it “belongs to Christians” is beyond absurd. The Hebrew Bible is a Jewish text, written in Hebrew, preserved by Jewish communities for centuries before Christianity existed. Christianity inherited these scriptures from Judaism; it did not originate them, own them, or supersede their Jewish meaning.
- His antisemitic stance has a long and ugly history: it has been used for centuries to justify exclusion, persecution, and violence against Jews.
- Joel’s remarks are not a defense of Christianity but a distortion of it. They replace theology with contempt, faith with supremacy, and belief with exclusion. Here he has revealed the fascist impulses of Christian nationalism.
This past week, Joel Webbon also told white nationalist Jared Taylor that he became a “race realist” after realizing that “prior generations were morally superior to me and my generation in every single arena,” including race.
- The vast majority of humans on the planet today are morally superior to Joel.
- Meanwhile the prior generations were not morally superior “in every arena.” They were marked by legalized slavery, racial terror, disenfranchisement, coerced labor, mass exclusion, and state-sanctioned violence. They often justified all this using the same religious language Webbon now deploys. Ignoring that record isn’t reverence for history; it’s curated amnesia.
Even More Political Cartoons from the past week
As always, there are many excellent cartoons.
Nick Anderson – Kristi Noem’s War on Truth
Adam Zyglis – self-portrait
Is it a Cult … or … something else?
The following are not real people, just bots, so don’t let stuff like this fool you …
The Melania Movie
I am so excited to not watch Melania’s movie that I’m not watching it right now and will be not watching it all weekend!
They’ll take Bezos’s money, they just don’t want anyone to know they had anything to do with it …
This is the guy who directed the movie … we are now seeing photo after photo of Brett Ratner on Epstein’s island… this admin is clearly stacked with co-conspirators/friends of Epstein …
OK yes, the above is of course just a joke review.
However, here is a very real review from Guardian on Melania …
- Guardian Jan 30, 2026: Melania review – Trump film is a gilded trash remake of The Zone of Interest
- Quote from that same review: “two hours of Melania feels like pure, endless hell.“
Finally
Jon Stewart – Jon on Alex Pretti’s Killing, DHS vs. Video Evidence & MAGA’s Gun Rights Surrender | The Daily Show
After the second murder of a Minnesota ICE protester by federal agents, Jon Stewart breaks down the increasingly unhinged gaslighting from Trump officials, who are trying to paint victim Alex Pretti as a “domestic terrorist” and ICE agents as innocent kittens, despite clear video evidence to the contrary. And as MAGA and Kristi Noem ignore even their precious Second Amendment in their attempts to justify the shooting of a legally armed citizen, Jon points to the real weapon threatening this administration: cameras. #DailyShow #JonStewart #Trump #ICE 0:00 –
- Jon Stewart’s TDS Welcome
- 0:48 – The Melania Documentary Drops This Week
- 1:56 – MAGA’s Account of Alex Pretti’s Murder Contradicts Video Footage
- 4:26 – Jordan Klepper Recounts What’s Going on in Minnesota
- 7:13 – Border Patrol President Floats New Lies About Pretti’s Murder
- 14:58 – MAGA Ignores Second Amendment to Justify Shooting
Jimmy Kimmel – Jimmy Kimmel on the Vile and Heartless Murder of Nurse Alex Pretti by ICE in Minneapolis
Jimmy reacts to what is happening in Minneapolis, ICE committing vile, heartless and even criminal acts, the killing of ICU Nurse Alex Pretti, the need for leaders on the right to stand up and show some courage and common sense, Attorney General Pam Bondi sending Governor Tim Walz a request for Minnesota voter rolls in exchange for de-esclation from ICE, Tom Homan being sent to replace Border Patrol Head Greg Bovino in Minneapolis, Trump posting about his new $400 million ballroom in the midst of all this and sharing designs for his new arch on the National Mall, the Trumps hosted a screening of the new Melania movie at the White House, the Department of Homeland Security reportedly asked staffers at FEMA to refrain from using the word ice when referring to the winter storm this weekend, Super Bowl LX is set between New England and Seattle, Kristi Noem has been busy gaslighting us when it comes to the murder of Alex Pretti, and Jimmy shares a video of Alex Pretti honoring one of his veteran patients in 2024.
.Stephen Colbert – ICE Outrage Goes Viral | White House Blame Game | Ilhan Omar: Tough Under Pressure | Poo-tomac River
Americans are expressing their anger about ICE in some unlikely corners of the internet, Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller are pointing fingers at each other as the administration does damage control over Alex Pretti’s murder, Rep. Ilhan Omar bravely fended off a bizarre attack at a speech in Minneapolis, and 40 million gallons of poo are washing into the Potomac River every day.