Shut Down This Murderous Government
An ICE killing spurs some Democrats to say they won't provide the funds for more American deaths
Jan. 8: Some congressional Democrats say they won’t fund ICE or DHS … Some congressional Democrats don’t say that … Trump’s Venezuelan government now rounding up Trump supporters … Trump pushes two stunning corporate crackdowns to the left of even most progressive Democrats …
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Federal funding for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency that committed murder in Minneapolis on Wednesday will run out at the end of this month unless Congress authorizes new funding.
The same is true of the Department of Homeland (sic) Security (DHS), which includes ICE, and the leader of which tried to cover up for the ICE murder and called the victim a terrorist.
Without new congressional allocations for 2026, both DHS and ICE would have to shut down after Jan. 31.
Oh noes.
There are multiple videos of the murder, showing that the slain driver, Renee Nicole Good, was attempting to drive away from ICE, not aiming at them, and that the killer fired at her from the side.
It’s not clear whether DHS Secretary Kristi Noem knew those videos existed when she lied about the dead woman, calling her a “domestic terrorist” and accusing her of trying to kill federal agents.
Close analysis of the amateur videos show that the car was heading away from, not toward, the agents, and that the shots were fired from the side.
Pres. Donald Trump posted video also exonerating the victim — apparently not realizing it exonerated the victim — alongside his claim that she ran over the ICE agent, who was clearly seen in the video Trump posted not being run over and was shown in other videos walking away calmly and apparently unharmed.
At almost literally the same time the shooting took place, Wednesday’s edition of The Fucking News came out, urging Democrats to shut down at least parts of this murderous, lawless government. Some Democrats are now saying exactly that.
“Democrats cannot vote for a DHS budget that doesn’t restrain the growing lawlessness of this agency.” — Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT).
“I cannot & will NOT support any funding for Trump’s ICE’s operations.” — Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD)
“We can't just keep authorizing money for these illegal killers.” — Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA).
“Statements and letters are not enough, and the appropriations process and the CR [Continuing Resolution] expiring Jan. 31 is our opportunity.” — Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-IL).
“We should be opposing the hundreds of billions of dollars going to a lawless agency.”— Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA).
Even Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) said, “I'm having a hard time seeing how we're gonna come to agreement on it,” meaning new funding to murder people.
Other Democrats are vowing other action.
Rep. Robin Kelly (D-IL) said Wednesday that she will file articles of impeachment against Noem. “Secretary Kristi Noem is an incompetent leader, a disgrace to our democracy, and I am impeaching her for obstruction of justice, violation of public trust, and self-dealing,” Kelly wrote.
Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN) found her fellow Minnesota lawmaker Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN) on the House floor Wednesday. Emmer is the Republican whip, meaning he’s the guy who keeps House Republicans voting in line with leadership.
Craig reportedly told Emmer that his party’s political stunts had got a woman killed in their state. Emmer told her to “take a walk.”
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And perhaps the best, most robust response came from Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN). To protect his state from murderous federal agents, Walz put the state National Guard on standby for possible deployment.
The Minnesota National Guard responded by notifying members and beginning equipment checks in case Walz calls them up.
Walz also said there will be a state investigation of the shooting. (As The American Prospect’s David Dayen wrote, federal agents can, in fact, be prosecuted by states for murder, even on-the-job murder.)
I wanted to spotlight Democratic congressional action because in a Substack Live on Tuesday, I self-righteously announced a new rule: In public reactions to whatever, members of Congress should say something only they can say.
Meaning, most of the time, they say shit anyone could say. “Trump’s bad.” “This is bullshit.” Whatever.
Then they’re just a blogger. And we already have bloggers.
What people need to hear from members of Congress is not opinions but what THE TOTAL FUCK are they going to DO about it?
So, I wanted to spotlight those aforespotlighted Democrats who honored my new rule: Saying what only they can say. Many, many other Democrats did not.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), who represents the state, offered only this:
“I am praying for the family and loved ones” (without even knowing whether they’re religious).
“We need full transparency” (there’s already multiple goddam videos).
“I am deeply concerned” (even though we already have Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) to be deeply concerned).
The typical congressional Democratic response was passive-voice stuff like, “These ICE agents must be held accountable” — by someone else, apparently — almost all of them variations on this:
And even some of the Democrats taking a stand now have long records of not taking a stand when we needed them to in order to prevent ending up where we are.
Eric Michael Garcia, Washington bureau chief for The Independent, asked Craig whether she regretted voting for the Laken Riley Act, which beefed up ICE. Craig’s response was not responsive.
Republicans, predictably, defended ICE and DHS and Good’s murder. Republicans on the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday voted against requiring DHS to turn over video and other records related to Wednesday’s murder.
If you Newsfuckers want to tell your representatives to dismantle ICE or DHS or block funding for this government without radical, immediate change to protect Americans from it — which is my passive-aggressive way of asking you to do just that — you can get the contact info for your senators and House member here.
THE PEOPLE Thousands of Americans turned out on Wednesday to protest state murder and the policies that led to it. HuffPost reported protests in Minneapolis, Chicago, New York, and elsewhere.
MEDIA WATCH Good is dead because of right-wing media.
ICE wasn’t in Minneapolis by coincidence. The ICE operation was announced Tuesday by DHS.
It was part of a surge of federal enforcement into Minnesota in response to right-wing provocateurs inflaming years-old fraud for political purposes, scapegoating Walz, Somali immigrants, and Democrats generally. (TFN reverse-engineered this bullshit a month ago.)
According to the Associated Press, ICE has now killed at least five people nationally as part of Trump’s xenophobic campaign. (The Trace is tracking all ICE shootings.)
And on Wednesday, reportedly, ICE officers prevented a doctor from administering aid to Good as she lay dying or already dead.
TRUMP ALREADY HEMMING AND/OR HAWING During a remarkable, two-hour exchange in the White House, New York Times reporters discussed with Trump topics including Good’s murder. And then insanely didn’t release the full transcript.
Amazingly, they collectively reviewed video of Good’s murder, even publishing a photo to show their review of the video with Trump:
First Trump claimed that Good had run over the ICE officer before he shot her. (Trump had told many lies prior to this conversation.) Then Trump called for the video.
The Times reporters pointed out the obvious: That the killer had not been run over. Trump’s response?
“Well,” Mr. Trump said. “I — the way I look at it … ”
“…[I]t’s horrible to watch. No, I hate to see it.”
Oops! That’s the sound of your political cover disappearing, anonymous-for-now ICE murderer.
THIS AGGRESSION WILL NOT STAND, HOMAN To his credit, White House border guy Tom Homan on Wednesday refused to parrot the lies of his boss and Noem.
Asked to defend their lies, Homan said, “What good is it to do right now to pre-judge the facts of what happened?” He said law enforcement — “whether it’s the FBI or the local police” — should get time to figure it out. Local police reportedly are investigating, along with the FBI.
ALSO IN MINNEAPOLIS Later on Wednesday, after school let out, Border Patrol officers showed up at Roosevelt High School, three miles from where their ICE colleagues had murdered someone that morning. (h/t)
The Border Patrol agents “began tackling people,” according to one local news outlet. They used chemical weapons against people there, smashed a car window, and handcuffed two school staffers.
Students took shelter at a nearby library. Minneapolis schools are closed today and Friday.
Due to the threat from federal officers.
META-MEDIA WATCH Here at TFN I try not to focus too much on who the victims were. A lot of people don’t like that, and I understand that, so I want to address it.
The details of Good’s life matter. A real person is gone and our government destroyed everything she would ever do in the future she’ll never have.
But TFN is a political newsletter about the actions of the U.S. government and its politicians. And the U.S. government shouldn’t be shooting anyone the way it shot Good. White, not-white. Woman, not-woman. Mother, not-mother. Citizen, not-citizen.
Yes, it matters when those in power target specific groups more than others. In this case, the primary targets were suspected undocumented immigrants, who, yes, we are obliged to defend.
The secondary target Wednesday was a legal observer: That’s the role that brought Good there. She was one of thousands of people who try to document the illegal actions of our government. That aspect of Good’s identity is what got her killed.
They killed someone who was there to do a civic, constitutionally-protected duty of monitoring what the government was doing. Whose car was not moving when she was approached. Who aimed her car away from those agents when she tried to leave (there are conflicting reports about whether ICE gave Good conflicting orders: Move vs. get out of the car).
But in the broadest sense, virtually none of this should matter. They’re not allowed to murder us. Any of us.
FLASHBACK Both ICE and DHS were created because terrorism works. Osama bin Laden succeeded in crashing three out of four passenger jets into civilian and military targets on Sept. 11, 2001: The World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The fourth plane was believed headed for a government target — the White House or the Capitol. And the people in those buildings responded by doing what the deaths in the other buildings were meant to accomplish: Panicking and ditching American principles out of fear.
That’s what terrorism is for: To terrify governments into acting out of fear. Which is how we got an agency to defend “the homeland,” a thing that isn’t, and how Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) became ICE, a weapon against others that would obviously eventually be turned against our country’s own people, including Renee Nicole Good.
Trump Now Running Two Repressive Governments
By contrast with the U.S., Venezuela has it easy. Pres. Donald Trump claims his first government is now running his second government, Venezuela’s.
Which would mean he’s now repressing the people of two countries on two continents.
According to the New York Times, the repression of Venezuelans has “intensified” since Trump liberated the people from Nicolás Maduro.
Under a current “state of emergency,” the nation’s security forces have been empowered to “search (for) and capture” people who support “the armed attack by the United States.”
Human rights groups and others in the country report that at least 20 people — including 14 journalists — have been detained at least temporarily. Venezuela’s people are being interrogated by the government Trump says he’s running for any sign of support for Trump’s removal of Maduro.
So, government forces of the government Trump says he’s running are accosting people at security checkpoints and on public transportation to make sure they don’t support Trump’s actions. Cheer up, Venezuela: You could be Minneapolis.
Democrats Outflanked on the Left … by Trump
On two key issues Wednesday, Pres. Donald Trump took the kind of action we might expect progressive Democrats to take.
Okay, it’s more that he talked about taking action, but still.
For one thing, Trump said he’s going to ban big Wall Street investment firms from buying single-family homes. The Wall Street Journal wants you to know that these firms only own about two or three percent of such homes. But depending on where those homes are, that could be enough to warp local markets and drive up housing costs.
As the Journal notes, “investors accounted for more than 20% of all home sales in some hot markets, including Houston, Miami, Phoenix and Las Vegas.” That was after the mortgage crash, of course, when the firms that tanked home prices swooped in and vultured up all those cheap, foreclosed homes.
Even more forcefully, Trump said he’s going to prevent weapons makers from paying out dividends, buying back their own stock, or paying executives “exorbitant and unjustifiable” salaries. He said none of them should make more than $5 million per year and issued an executive order directing steps in these directions.
Trump also said he’ll cut off RTX — formerly Raytheon — from government contracts until it starts using the obscene profits from its obscene products to build factories instead of buying back stocks.
It’s not that Trump’s suddenly a pacifist; he’s pissed that arms companies aren’t making arms fast enough. (Which might mean someone told him he won’t live to see the first christening of his Trump Class battleships.)
The point is it’s all far more progressive and economic populist than we virtually ever hear from Democrats. And Democrats would be smart to push congressional Republicans to back these measures — and try to push them further left.
MEDIA WATCH The juxtaposition of these two stories on the Wall Street Journal homepage was jarring enough that I was compelled to grab the image:
A lot of people forget just how controversial stock buybacks were (I can’t remember if they were literally illegal), but if Trump is pushing economic populism like this ahead of the 2026 midterms, Democratic candidates who aren’t might have a tougher time than they think.
Three Quickies
Remember how a House vote on Obamacare was one of the conditions for re-opening the government last year? That vote is today. And on Wednesday, nine Republicans joined Democrats on a preliminary vote to advance the bill, which would revive the expanded Obamacare subsidies that expired last week and helped 22 million afford health insurance.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is shutting down in May. It’s 240 years old, about three times as old as Pres. Donald Trump, and one of the nation’s oldest newspapers. The owners announced the shutdown after the Supreme Court Wednesday refused to let them out of their 2014 labor contract. As the union pointed out, the family that owns the newspaper had millions of dollars to spend on the legal fight. Someone sane please buy the Post-Gazette post-haste.
The House Oversight Committee on Wednesday authorized subpoenas related to the sex-trafficking operation run by Jeffrey Epstein while he was best friends with Donald Trump. Those getting subpoenaed to provide evidence include Epstein client Les Wexner, Epstein lawyer Darren Indyke, and Epstein accountant Richard Kahn, but not Epstein best friend Donald Trump.
TCB
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Go get ‘em, kids! Even congressional Democrats are waking up…
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.
I was thinking this morning that Renee Nicole Good died while performing oversight on an executive branch agency — which is literally *Congress’s fucking job*. And if they had done it, she wouldn’t have had to and she would very likely still be among the alive and her six-year-old son would not be an orphan. So as you are chastising your elected representatives, you might include this nugget in the hopes that they have enough shame left to recognize that this woman is dead *because of their dereliction of duty*. Because her blood is on the hands of every motherfucker who enabled this corrupt regime. (And yes, the blood of uncountable others, but every movement needs a symbol, and while I’m sure Renee Nicole Good would have preferred to not have that role, here we fucking are.)
Thank you for saying what you said about ICE and our duty to defend ALL our neighbors regardless of status 🫶🏻