“No.”

Pam Bondi implied Minnesota could have peace in return for the state's voter rolls; on Sunday she got her answer

Jan. 26: Minnesota state official tells Attorney General Bondi she can’t have the state’s voter data … Senate Democrats mysteriously imbued with superpower to not vote for funding fascism … Trump declines to cheer federal heroes who saved America from Alex Pretti by murdering him … Poll: More Americans want to abolish ICE than support it …

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Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon responded Sunday to Attorney General Pam Bondi’s request for the state’s voter rolls. (Uncredited / Steve Simon photo.)

On Saturday, after unidentified federal agents shot a 37-year-old, unarmed nurse to death, Attorney General Pam Bondi reached out to Minnesota state officials … to pressure them.

Bondi blamed Minnesota officials for the unjustified, unprovoked violence committed by federal agents now not under investigation by Bondi’s department. (Bondi’s refusal to investigate Renee Good’s killing by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Jonathan Ross led an FBI field office supervisor to quit.)

Bondi implied that federal forces would leave — “bring an end to the chaos” — if Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) and other officials would:

• Share state Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) records.

• Repeal sanctuary policies barring local officials from assisting federal immigration enforcement beyond what’s legally required.

• Turn over undocumented immigrants currently in Minnesota prisons or jails.

• Share voter rolls with the Department of Justice.

On Sunday, Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, who has custody and jurisdiction over the voter rolls, issued a statement in response.

“The answer to Attorney General Bondi’s request is no.”

There was more, but I wanted to do that part alone cuz it’s so sexy. Here’s more:

“The law does not give the federal government the authority to obtain this private data. Minnesota is not alone in declining to disclose sensitive personal data on voters. So far, thirty-one other states have said no. …

“It is deeply disturbing that the U.S. Attorney General would make this unlawful request a part of an apparent ransom to pay for our state’s peace and security.

“More broadly, the federal government must end the unprecedented and deadly occupation of our state immediately.”

Wait til Trump officials find out that Simon’s Jewish. (Yes, Bondi is part of the White House Bible study that teaches that the Jews killed Jesus.)

Dems Suddenly Gain Super Power of Voting No

Apparently, a 37-year-old Minneapolis nurse was the problem keeping Senate Democrats from blocking funding for the Department of Homeland (sic) Security (DHS). Because as soon as Alex Pretti was gone, Senate Democrats on Saturday miraculously gained the power to vote no on at least one agency budget.

Weirdly, Pretti’s killing by agents of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) gave Senate Democrats the enhanced vision to see problems not with CBP, but with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and gave them the super-vocal ability to speak out about ICE. Instead of about CBP. But, hey, I’ll take it. I mean, Spider-Man got his powers from a radioactive spider, so it’s not like super-power origins make sense.

Now, if you Newsfuckers suspect this disparity between a CBP killing and new opposition to ICE reflects a certain shallowness of thought among senators, who am I to gainsay you? (I did a TFN Special Edition on Sunday drilling into all of this, including which Democrats suddenly gained super powers over the weekend.)

The big Democratic ask right now is that the Senate get to vote on one bill that’s just DHS funding, which includes both ICE and CBP. This, I argued obstreperously because I was obstrepissed, was a bullshit low bar to demand in return for funding an agency that’s killing people and openly declares that this is part of the job.

There are many things Democrats could reasonably demand in return for funding DHS. But they could also have no demands and simply not vote for it. Period.

Anyway, it may not matter, because, reportedly, Senate Republicans won’t let DHS get a separate vote. Instead, Republicans want one vote for DHS plus Defense, State, Education, Labor, and Transportation.

Which Senate Democrats sure af better vote against. Especially since Democrats shouldn’t be voting to fund the illegalities of the State Department or the maritime murders of the Defense Department.

CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION Why exactly are CBP agents killing Americans in Minneapolis, MN, 250 miles away from the Canadian border, where they should be killing Americans and presumably Canadians? And 1400-plus miles from the Mexican border?

Because when you create law enforcement, it will expand until eventually your name comes up. Or your number.

And, lest we forget, historically, CBP has had a worse reputation than ICE. Journalist Garrett Graff shared some stats that help explain why. (h/t)

“CBP’s arrest and misconduct rate is FIVE TIMES higher than other federal law enforcement agencies…”

Graff crunches the numbers to note that the CBP arrest rate — 0.5% — is higher than the undocumented-immigrant arrest rate: 0.4%. As Graff puts it in bold:

“…CBP officers and Border Patrol agents commit crimes at an equal or even greater rate PER CAPITA than the population of undocumented immigrants do in the United States.”

Graff also helpfully catalogues some of the sexual abuse attributed to CBP at home and on the job. In case anyone’s pretending to still care about that kind of thing.

LOOKING FORWARD No, not the next federal violence in Minnesota, that’s TBD.

But Friday is when the unfunded federal agencies run out of funding. Which some of the more overtly criminal — DHS, Justice, and Defense — clearly should. Senate Democrats will meet Wednesday to figure out a strategy that doesn’t involve excessive leadership or principled boldness.

What Kind of Radical Fringe Weirdo Supports ICE?

The murder of Alex Pretti by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has claimed another casualty. The public standing of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been hit in the lack of crossfire.

According to new polling Sunday night, “Abolish ICE” is now the mainstream, Main Street, heartland view of real Americans like Joe Sixpack, John Q. Public, and Average Joe.

The new polling finds that 46% of Americans want ICE abolished. The weirdo, radical, out-of-step, fringe view that we should keep this agency — born of post-9/11 terror spasms and still barely old enough to be purged from the voter rolls — is held by only 41%.

And those numbers will get even more lopsided as more people see the video of the lopsided attack on Pretti. How do we know? Because they polled that, too. And people who’ve seen the videos really fucking hate ICE and CBP.

Among those who saw the video, 63% say Pretti’s shooting wasn’t justified. Only 20% say it was.

Among those who saw the video, a 53% majority — y’know, wholesome, Main Street, paragons of American values — disapprove of Border Patrol. Only 41% approve because they’re un-American weirdos who fetishize guns, hate-masturbate, don’t wash, and have fierce ambivalence about Taylor Swift.

But the really important numbers are the granulars on the empiricals — meaning, what we know about what the poll respondents knew. Look at what happens to the numbers of respondents who “Don’t Know” their view of Border Patrol, as we shift between people who saw the video, heard about the video, and hadn’t even heard about it:

• Hadn’t heard about the shooting: 30% don’t know their view of Border Patrol.

• Saw video: 6% don’t know.

Not only did seeing the video allow the vast majority of unsures to get sure, but they turned against Border Patrol after seeing the video. Those who approved of CBP fell by six points, from 47% to 41%. Those who disapproved rose by 30 points, more than doubling from 23% to 53%.

But here’s the scary part. If respondents had not seen the video but had heard about it, both approval and disapproval of Border Patrol rose dramatically. Only in this incompletely informed cohort does Border Patrol enjoy majority approval.

Among those who heard about the shooting but had not seen the video:

• Approve of Border Patrol: 54%

• Disapprove: 35%

• Not Sure: 11%

The moral of this story: Share the video, especially the free video analyses, like Bellingcat’s:

FWIW I find these poll numbers incredibly heartening, if that’s a word. Whatever bubbles we live in, they’re permeable. Seeing things for ourselves matters. And all of us can help with that!

POLITICS WATCH The new poll numbers come less than two weeks after the corporate message-policing group Third Way advised congressional Democrats that “calls to abolish ICE have once again surged on the left. The impulse is emotional. The slogan is simple. But politically, it is lethal.”

The basis for Third Way’s argument? Polling. Polling done when Alex Pretti was still alive.

Impeach ‘Em? I Hardly Noem!

In a conference call Sunday, House Democrats reportedly came out in support of impeaching Homeland (sic) Security Secretary Kristi Noem on the grounds of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, and the wee donkey¹ does she suuuuuuuck.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), a GOP-curious swing-district Democrat, said, “we will have no other option but to begin impeachment,” if Noem doesn’t leave of her own accord, or Prius, or whatever. She can take a fuckin’ Cybertruck if that’s what it takes.

DEMOCRACY WATCH Axios reports that House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) urged members not to leak details of the call, presumably so that voters wouldn’t find out what they’re saying.

PS There’s no reason Democrats shouldn’t be talking just as loudly, or secretly, about impeaching federal-crime coverupper Attorney General Pam Bondi and Murder, He Boat star Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. And their boss, of course.

Trump Attacking More Cities

The Wall Street Journal reports that Pres. Donald Trump spent his weekend fielding calls from “dozens” of senators and administration officials, “with some worrying that public sentiment has turned against the administration's immigration-enforcement actions.”

Ya think?

Gov. Phil Scott (R-VT) in a statement said, “It’s not acceptable for American citizens to be killed by federal agents for exercising their God-given [sic] and constitutional rights to protest their government.” (Scott didn’t address whether it’s still cool to kill citizens of other countries for doing that.) “The president should pause these operations, blah blah blah,” Scott blah blah blahed.

Some of Trump’s own aides, the Journal reported, “believe the White House should be looking for an off-ramp.” Good news: Plenty will take you out of Minneapolis, so just choose one.

Hilariously, other aides — :::coughStephenMillercough::: — “believe that ending the current efforts in Minneapolis would be a capitulation to the left.” Yer damn right it would.

So far, the White House has blamed local officials for the federal shootings. But there’s no theory of the case that would make anyone connect those dots, let alone justify Trump’s maximalist approach to Minneapolis.

So what’s Trump trying now? He’s pushing a ban on sanctuary cities (and states).

Not to shock anyone, but Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) got on board faster than “Melania” will get out of theaters. That’s right, the party of small government and states’ rights is arguing that big government has the right to take away states’ rights and force state and local officials to help federal agents do their jobs instead of doing the jobs state and local voters elected their state and local officials to do.

Do I think it will pass? Newsfucker, at this point, I don’t think Trump could pass the smoothest, tiniest kidney stone. And there are already signs Trump’s searching Google Maps for a Minneapolis off-ramp…

Trump Throws Pretti’s Killers Under Bus Patrolling the Border

Instead of standing up for the brave Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents who nobly shot an unarmed nurse on the ground ten times, including in his back, Pres. Donald Trump on Sunday night did not.

Speaking with the Wall Street Journal cuz it was more fun than calling Alex Pretti’s parents, Trump declined to defend the shooting. “We’re looking, we’re reviewing everything and will come out with a determination,” Trump said, leaving federal officials who already came out with determinations with their genitals hanging out over their skis. “I don’t like any shooting,” Trump said². “I don’t like it.”

Which is weird, because Trump didn’t name and praise the CBP heroes who heroically defended America from the shooting by the alleged domestic terrorist who Trump’s deputy chief of staff told us was about to massacre federal agents.

Even White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was soft on terror, defending those who would massacre our beloved federal heroes, saying, “Nobody, including President Trump, wants to see people get shot or hurt.” Which, not always true, obviously.

And Trump then squooshed Pretti’s killers together tighter under the bus so he could squoosh America’s gun nuts under the bus, too:

“I don’t like it when somebody goes into a protest and he’s got a very powerful, fully loaded gun with two magazines loaded up with bullets also. That doesn’t play good either.”

Finally, a president is coming for our guns!

If you’re interested in how gun makers were already recoiling from officials justifying Pretti’s death because he was armed, I had details in Sunday’s TFN Special Edition.

And Trump also hinted at throwing the entire DHS mission under the apparently enormous bus. He’s talking about retreat and already personally retreating from the world.

Despite the murder and unrest in Minneapolis, Trump had no public appearances Sunday. His only scheduled event was a private screening of fellow sexual predator Brett Ratner’s documentary about First Lady Melania Trump. All three, of course, were buddies of Jeffrey Epstein, so it’s nice they had something to talk about.

We also found out that Trump won’t attend the Super Bowl in Santa Clara, CA. How come? “It’s just too far away,” he said, days after returning from Europe.

It’s a shame, because he’ll miss the performance by Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny, which Trump would have enjoyed even more than the insane sound of a stadium roaring “BOOOOOO!!!” accompanied by a sea of waving middle fingers.

So, yeah, factor in his Greenland retreat, and Trump is clearly less interested these days in being where he’s not wanted — unless it’s a teen beauty pageant dressing room, obviously — so it’s not a surprise that Sunday he was making it sound like DHS has accomplished something worthwhile in Minneapolis.

“At some point we will leave,” Trump said, now that it’s not fun anymore. “[T]hey’ve done a phenomenal job,” he said, declaring victory to cover his retreat.

And a big Trump ally, Rep. James Comer (R-TN), who chairs the Oversight Committee, not only referred Sunday to “a chance of losing more innocent lives” (italics added for facts), Comer started punching off-ramps into Trump’s GPS.

Comer suggested that if local officials don’t want ICE there, “then maybe go to another city and let the people of Minneapolis decide.”

And what might the people of Minneapolis decide? Well, the Timberwolves Sunday posted video of dunkers wearing “ICE OUT” t-shirts. So who knows?!?

In fact, the entire NBA seems to be in agreement. The NBA players union Sunday sided with the domestic terrorists: “[W]e 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.” (h/t)

Two coaches, too, spoke movingly about what Minneapolis is enduring and has already lost.

Media Watch

I know it’s unsatisfying to hear this, but a headline that doesn’t flatly assert the truth isn’t automatically proof of cowardice or bad intent or anything other than writing it in the context of what everyone else is saying. Allow me to demonstrate.

On Sunday, I posted that this New York Times headline about Alex Pretti’s death was a good try:

But I said that this Wall Street Journal headline was perfect:

The Times leans on “appear” to caveat the contradiction of federal accounts. And the left was rightly dunking on the Times for saying “appear” and celebrating the Journal for not couching its language.

But even the Journal headline was couching, in a way I didn’t immediately see. The videos don’t just “contradict” the official account. They prove that the federal accounts were lies. At that point, you don’t need “Videos” in your headline any more than you needed “Appear.”

Now the story is that specific, identifiable federal officials lied. And so an actually perfect headline might have read something like:

Noem, Bovino Lied
About Shooting
By Federal Agents

Which, by the way, we knew even without a single video, because they described Pretti as a “domestic terrorist” who, according to non-law-enforcement not-on-the-scene White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, was going to massacre federal agents and for some reason began his killing spree by bending down to help one of CBP’s victims.

My point is, I do it, too. Sometimes it’s just a matter of time and distance letting us think more deeply and see things without the smog of other coverage. Which doesn’t mean to forgive or excuse half-assed headline writing. Griping by incisive readers can be more effective than time and distance.

TCB

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Go get ‘em, kids! We all have the super-power to say, “No.”

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TFN creator and writer Jonathan Larsen co-created Up w/ Chris Hayes and wrote for Countdown with Keith Olbermann at MSNBC, helped launch CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° and Air America Radio, and has also worked at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Young Turks.

1. It’s from Line of Duty, which I recommend:

2. History tells us this is not true.