He tells us trump administration that an intensive care nurse, Alex Jeffrey Pretti, and a mother of three, Renee Nicole Good, both shot to death by ICE agents in MinnesotaThey are a new generation of local terrorists. You can watch videos of both incidents and judge for yourself the grotesqueness and absurdity of these claims. Or you could take the word of White House resident Renfield Stephen Miller, who took to social media and called Pretti “a would-be assassin” who “attempted to assassinate federal law enforcement.”
Pretti’s Videos horrible murderFilmed from multiple angles, it shows six or seven officers tackling a passive Pretti to the ground. When they discover a gun on his body, one of the agents appears to disarm Pretti, and then another shoots him four times in the back. A third agent also shoots at his body. Shooting a subdued man in the back is the very definition of excessive force and cowardice.
Despite visual evidence to the contrary, Department of Homeland Security chief and self-proclaimed dog-executioner Kristi Noem asserted that Pretti’s murder was justified: “This looks like a situation where an individual arrived on the scene to inflict maximum harm on people and kill law enforcement.”
Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino, whose recent wardrobe choices are reminiscent of someone dressed as an Indiana Jones villain, claims Pretti “wanted to cause maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.” According to the available videos, the only thing Pretti had in his hands during the encounter was a phone. He doesn’t seem to fight the ICE agents in any way. Bovino also made the absurd and offensive comment that the officers were the true victims of the incident. The lies accumulate and insult our intelligence.
No matter what the Trump administration may claim, federal agents are not authorized to act as judge, jury and executioner on the streets of America. These agents are not above the law. But in both Minneapolis murders we see behavior that breaks the protocol of a police shooting. The agents leave the scene. Local authorities are prevented from examining evidence of the murder. Elected officials and the White House trade insults and investigations, but Washington makes no effort to conduct the kind of rigorous investigation that the death of any human being merits on principle or in the eyes of a nation governed by law. Partisanship and extreme politics literally became a blood sport.
A more serious and sober president would try to diffuse this situation before the twist widens even further and the country is convulsed by more violence and damage. Instead, President Trump turned to Truth Social to attack Minnesota Democrats in a particularly unhinged torrent of rage. “Where are the local police? Why weren’t they allowed to protect ICE officers? Did the mayor and governor cancel them? It is claimed that many of these police officers were not allowed to do their jobs, that ICE had to protect themselves. Not an easy thing to do! Why does Ilhan Omar have $34 million dollars in her account? And where are the tens of billions of dollars that have been stolen from the once Great State of Minnesota? We are there because of currency fraud massive, with billions of dollars missing and illegal criminals who were allowed to infiltrate the state through the Democrats’ Open Border Policy We want our money back, and we want it back, NOW.”
It’s unclear what the alleged fraud in Minnesota has to do with ICE killing civilians, other than distracting and diverting them. This year-long barrage of insidious distortions by the administration has taken its toll on all of us. There is a fact pattern of lying. From DOGE to the Big Beautiful Bill, the destruction of the government workforce and the use of the Department of Justice as a weapon to punish political enemies, it has been an exhausting year of ugly theater. Unfortunately, a parade of falsehoods have been used before to justify violence. If killing Venezuelans on boats with missiles was for drugs, where is the narcotics, or any evidence? The administration simply asks us to trust them.
Last week, Trump brought his dark cloud to Davos to insult our European allies and openly plot to seize the territory of a long-time friendly nation: Greenland. An island where we already have military access to satisfy our strategic needs. Trump’s long, deranged speech, filled with more lies and ugly investigations, veered into mad king territory. He called Greenland, Iceland, four times. The performance was a disgrace, only true believers in the administration would not realize that the president’s brain rotted completely exposed. Trump’s crude and venal character has left the world and large parts of the country horrified, fearful and, rightly, furious. At home and abroad, the president’s anger and lies sow chaos, confusion and revulsion.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney summed up the situation: “We are in the middle of a rupture, not a transition,” Carney told the crowd in Davos. “Over the past two decades, a series of financial, health, energy and geopolitical crises have laid bare the risks of extreme global integration. But more recently, great powers have begun to use economic integration as weapons, tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as coercion, supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited. You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes the source of our subordination.”
The killing must stop. Congress has broad powers and must act. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said after Good’s murder: “We just watched them murder an American citizen in cold blood on the street. Whatever lies the president wants to tell, you can see what happened with your own eyes.”
Despite a bipartisan call for investigation In the wake of Pretti’s assassination, led by Senator Tina Smith of Minnesota, there are very few signs of bravery beyond the usual vocal opposition. Unless a significant number of the Republican majority join the minority, this outrageous and ongoing abuse of power will only get worse. We cannot have thousands of federal agents roaming the cities, sweeping people off the streets, operating with impunity, clashing with protesters and not expect more violent episodes and senseless deaths. Unless ICE is reined in, we are headed for more tragedies and bloodshed across the country.
Americans can no longer live within all these lies.
