Greg Mitchell has authored more than a dozen books (see most of them here) and directed four recent PBS films, including the current “The Atomic Bowl.” Subscribing to this newsletter is still FREE.
Starting with a “bonus” post on Saturday night, I have been chronicling news updates and commentary (even via editorial cartoons) on the first-degree murder of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. I’ll continue that today as the crisis, and need for action, rises. Responses in no particular order, scroll through as you wish. Thank you.
Ann Telnaes:
Tom Morello: “SUSTAINED NATIONAL GENERAL STRIKE TO DRIVE TRUMP FROM OFFICE. No one’s coming to save us except us.”
Bill Clinton: “Over the course of a lifetime, we face only a few moments where the decisions we make and the actions we take will shape our history for years to come. This is one of them. If we give our freedoms away after 250 years, we might never get them back.”
The National Basketball Players Association:
Now more than ever we must defend the right to freedom of speech and stand in solidarity with the people in Minnesota protesting and risking their lives to demand justice. The fraternity of NBA players, like the United States itself, is a community enriched by its global citizens, and we refuse to let the flames of division threaten the civil liberties that are meant to protect us all.
Joe Scarborough: “The storm is not gathering. It is here.”
Paul Krugman:
The first post-Pretti execution poll, from YouGov, shows that ICE’s brownshirt tactics are evoking a wave of anger, shame and revulsion across America. People who have seen videos of the shooting overwhelmingly say that it was unjustified. Calls to abolish ICE have gone from the fringe to the center, with a plurality of Americans supporting them.
Does this mark a tipping point? Or will the revulsion simply fade away, as it did after Good was killed? I think that this time is different, for several reasons.
Tjerd Royaards:
Bill Kristol: “After everything we’ve seen the past few days…are we feeling confident about this gang giving up power after the 2028 election?”
The New York Times on MAGA fakery:
While verified videos and witnesses showed how federal immigration agents tackled and shot Alex Pretti, 37, the posts tried to warp the events, including in ways intended to support the Trump administration’s claims that Mr. Pretti was at fault for his own death. Some posts smeared him or portrayed him as a radical activist.
Nick Sortor, a pro-Trump influencer with 1.4 million followers on X, incorrectly identified Mr. Pretti, a U.S. citizen, as an unauthorized immigrant. Jack Posobiec, a Trump loyalist with 3.3 million followers on X, falsely described Mr. Pretti as having “run up on police” and drawn a gun — claims that other users on X corrected in an appended note. Photos of different men — dressed in drag or shirtless at a street festival — were wrongly identified as Mr. Pretti and shared widely.
Lydia Polgreen, The New York Times: “We may yet come to an actual civil war, with armed people on different sides.”
Lucian K. Truscott IV calls the coming ICE vs. National Guard conflict the “First Step in a Civil War.”
What this means is that the people of Minneapolis, the city police, and the Minnesota National Guard will be on one side of the struggle, with agents allied with Donald Trump and his authoritarian regime will be on the other side. This is unprecedented in the United States of America, a governor believing that he must use his powers to call up the state national guard in order to defend and protect the citizens of his state from a federal militia that has invaded the city of Minneapolis as if its armed and masked members are an enemy army.
Heather Cox Richardson:
Reports out of Minnesota say that in the face of the terror inflicted on it by federal agents, the people there are even more closely linked together in community solidarity. They are patrolling the streets, donating food, delivering groceries, helping with legal services, organizing to look out for each other in a demonstration of community solidarity so foreign to administration figures that Attorney General Pam Bondi yesterday suggested that there was something nefarious about how well organized they are as they protect their neighbors.
Let’s pause to recall rightwingers Patricia and Mark McCloskey who brought weapons to a protest. They were honored as keynote speakers at the 2020 Republican National Convention.
The conservative Wall St. Journal editorial board: "The Saturday shooting of Alex Pretti, as he lay on the ground surrounded by ICE agents, is the worst incident to date in what is becoming a moral and political debacle for the Trump Presidency."
Rare political comment from business reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin this morning in his email newsletter:
Occasionally in this space, I have raised questions about how the business community uses its voice. In recent years, that group has gone largely silent on issues deemed “too political.” But at some point, business leaders — not just those in Minneapolis — need to raise their hands. They don’t have to do it individually; they can do it collectively, as the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce has done.
David Rowe:
Paolo Lombardi on “the next election”
Bramhall:
Is it really a civil war when the States and their power (and supporters) go against the Federal Government (and their supporters)?
Masked people kidnapping people off the streets and out of their homes, work, and schools, killing any who try to stop them, ARE THE ENEMY. Period. They're going to find themselves treated as such and will have to decide if they want to actually go out on the mean streets of armed citizens, as Minnesota is an open carry state, or pay back that sign on bonus they've already spent. What a bad decision those bozos made when they joined. I feel for those who just thought it was a normal law enforcement job and have found out otherwise and are also not comfortable with what their coworkers are doing.