ICE Pulled the Trigger

I am writing under the influence of a toxic combination of rage, confusion, astonishment, and disbelief.

An ICE agent shot and killed a woman in Minneapolis today. Multiple video angles (content warning: murder) show officers around an unmoving SUV, while one pulls a gun and reaches over the hood of the car to fire three to four shots point-blank at the driver. Right as this happens, the woman in the car seems to turn around to drive away; a VERY NORMAL RESPONSE to a masked man pulling a gun on you and firing.

No part of me is surprised to learn that an ICE agent has killed someone. No part of me is surprised that our current administration has a shitty response to it. I was not ready for the degree to which they would come out swinging against a suburban American woman who was executed in her car in broad daylight.

On Truth Social, the for-profit social media website which the president owns (!??!), our esteemed and insightful leader asserted:

I have just viewed the clip of the event which took place in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is a horrible thing to watch. The woman screaming was, obviously, a professional agitator, and the woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer, who seems to have shot her in self defense. Based on the attached clip, it is hard to believe he is alive, but is now recovering in the hospital. The situation is being studied, in its entirety, but the reason these incidents are happening is because the Radical Left is threatening, assaulting, and targeting our Law Enforcement Officers and ICE Agents on a daily basis. They are just trying to do the job of MAKING AMERICA SAFE. We need to stand by and protect our Law Enforcement Officers from this Radical Left Movement of Violence and Hate!

PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP

Meanwhile, Kristi Noem—the head of the Department of Homeland Security and chief puppy executioner—has ALREADY labeled this incident an "act of domestic terrorism," which would be actually quite accurate if it weren't for the fact that she has labeled the dead woman a domestic terrorist.

This Feels Different

I'm not going to assert that this is going to lead to anything, but this is about as clear as it gets of this administration demanding us to not believe our lying eyes.

Between this, the absurdity with Venezuela, the skyrocketing healthcare costs, the lack of economic relief, the Epstein files debacle, and everything else, I'm finally starting to see some cracks forming.

People are exhausted, even on the conservative side. Republican support for action in Venezuela is already shockingly lower than their support for basically anything this administration does, hovering in the 45-55% range instead of the usual 80-90% range.

I won't hold my breath, but more than ever I'm seeing conservatives willing to openly discuss discontent with the administration. While a good number of them are upset that the admin isn't doing more evil shit, the lion's share seems to be more in the camp of, "how... does any of this actually help anything?"

Get Mad, Still

I don't often encourage people to "get mad" or "stay mad," I think we're all pretty much as mad as we can be consistently. But don't let this be a blip in the wind. Don't let leaders—especially those who are supposed to be pushing back on this—get away with tepid statements of unity.

We are being torn apart by an active, malicious federal agency staffed with unaccountable goons who hide their faces in public while carrying lethal weaponry. Now these same people know they can murder someone and the president will hail them as a hero while the woman bleeding out in her car is called a terrorist for trying to get away from mortal danger brought to her doorstep by unchecked racism which has boiled over into what is now one step closer to—if not already—a hot war.

We need nothing less than a strong response from leaders. Unfortunately, we have Chuck fucking Schumer.