Attribution:
Featuring the Fabulous Dadbots: Dave S., Mark M., Mark O., Michael D., Dennis C., John K., and Geoff Carter
Hot off the parent network texting here in SF last night.
Friend of my DIL’s nanny was walking home with her charge last night from Moscone Park—1 block away. A woman followed her and began berating her, asking her where is she from?, is that your child?, etc… Once home the high powered parents were incensed. Nanny is Hispanic, legal and the couple is upper class. Mother is chief something or other at Banana Republic. I’d be surprised if this does not pop up in the national news.
-D
Talk about taking a cannon to a knife fight! The news and footage from Minneapolis is disturbing. Federal troops patrolling a large American city, tear gassing and harassing unarmed civilians and even shooting unarmed civilians looks and feels like a violent banana republic. The purported video of the Karen Good shooting and death appears to show a driver backing up and trying to get the hell away from an escalating situation. My guess is she was probably harassing ICE agents as reports indicate, but her actions don’t elevate her to domestic terrorist status.
Hot off the press, ICE agents are granted immunity from all actions. Wonder if this includes jaywalking in Milwaukee? I’m not sure why there even needs to be a large armed contingent of agents on our city streets. Would it be just as effective to apprehend would be undocumented immigrants with a knock and splintered door at 2 in the morning as opposed to deploying a force of armed and jacked up troops on our city streets. Perhaps it has something to do with retribution against democratic leaning “sanctuary” cities.
As John Lennon sang, “nobody told me there would be days like these, strange days indeed”.
-JK
Her name wasn’t Karen. Was that a Freudian slip John? I watched several videos from different vantage points and there’s no way the shooting was justified. The shooter had a traumatic incident with a motorist years ago and may have suffered from PTSD. So let’s give him guns and drop him in a hostile situation. Makes perfect sense.
I don’t know if Ms. Good was harassing the agents but from the captured audio it seems that her wife definitely was. The takeaway for me is, don’t antagonize unaccountable people with guns. It might make you feel good and there may be no consequences for you, but the next person who confronts the agent could end up dead. And that person could be your wife.
The most shocking thing is the agents made no effort to save the woman and even blocked a passerby doctor from assisting her. Apparently the only good protester/liberal/lesbian is a dead one.
This is now personal for me with my friends and family in MN.
MarkO
Hey bots,
What’s really frightening about ICE is the huge influx of money and personnel that’s coming into them from the Bad Bilious Bill. There’ll be thousands more with better vehicles, funding, and probably Kiss masks. And even after the Renee Good murder, ICE agents have not been letting up.They are breaking windows and dragging people from their cars, teargassing them, and beating the hell out of people. They’re forcing their way into schools. This is neither enforcement nor immigration control. It is a campaign of terror. Trump is trying to scare us with his Trump Gestapo with, I think, the final goal of suspending the fall elections.
But the courts are standing up. Recently, a Minnesota court banned ICE from using tear gas and aggressive tactics, much as they did in Illinois. According to The Hill, “U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez wrote in her order that ICE cannot retaliate against, arrest or detain “persons who are engaging in peaceful and unobstructive protest activity.”
Noem and Trump’s immediate finger-pointing and their refusals to conduct an open investigation is causing a lot of blowback. People, even Trumpers, are getting pissed off. Apparently, even the president himself does not like “the optics”—his only imperative.
I’m hoping Trump is approaching a bridge too far. There have been minor defections from congressional Republicans. I’ve heard Greenland would break the camel’s back, but I don’t put any trust in any Republicans these days.
On another note, I watched a zoom interview between Kirk Bangstand of Minocqua Brewery and State Senator Chris Larson. Part of their discussion was about their disappointment with Evers, that he was appeasing Trump instead of standing up to him like Tim Walz or JB Pritzker—which I tend to agree with. Bangstad even compared him to Neville Chamberlain. You can find it on Substack.
G
What’s insanely polar about the war in MSP is the temperature/humidity. Historically ‘tis the heat of summer, (Baltimore, Ferguson (St. Louis), Kenosha (Jacob Blake), Louisville, (Breonna Taylor), Compton, even MSP—Georg Floyd), where folks are stressed, shots fired, the looter dark web then swoops in—“all free today”—(to quote Chitty Chitty Bang Bang—child catcher scene)—and we have a mess. But here, No. Rather, the gobment is bringing the heat. WTF?…WTF?…
Pretty sure I was dreaming, before I nodded off last night…something about my wife reading a story of tear gas-ing—under a car of a family—jolting the vehicle–and an infant needing mouth to mouth resuscitation and a trip to the ER. Crazy how the mind fabricates things, ay. 😡.
-d.
Bots, your description of the chaos in Minneapolis is accurate—perhaps even understated.
Consider this. A central element of the ICE strategy is to provoke confrontation. The Trump brand is Strength. Nothing says Strength like these heavily armed federal agents, arrayed in tactical gear, facing down protesters.
The scenes from Minneapolis play well with the Trump base, and with law & order Republicans. They enrage Democrats, and that’s just a bonus as far as MAGA is concerned.
If there were no protesters, ICE would quickly disappear from Minneapolis. I’m not suggesting that the protesters step down. Peaceful resistance is THE most effective form of political protest. Take it from MLK.
Trump’s fondest dreams will be realized if ICE manages to provoke a violent reaction. They burned a police station during the BLM protest in Minneapolis. That kind of reaction never helps the protesters’ cause. It only drives people who are on the fence to the government’s sides.
Dave, I’ll see your tear gassing tale and raise you a Mexican restaurant story. This week, ICE agents dined at a suburban restaurant near Minneapolis. Presumably they liked their meal. They returned to the place at closing time, followed several employees home, and arrested them. Nothing says ”worst of the worst” like a Mexican busboy. Next time, spit in their burrito while you have the chance!
A final note. Geoff mentioned Greenland. I think Steve Bannon’s “flood the zone” strategy is operative again. Venezuela, threats to Cuba and Mexico Nigeria, Iran, Greenland, tariffs, pardons, ICE. The list goes on. We’re back in January 2025, but this time without Elon!!
-MM
Agree with all this except the ICE disappearance scenario. They still have many thousands of immigrants they want to round up. Some undocumented, some citizens, many in liminal stages of residency. Round ‘em up and lock em up. If nobody makes a big stink about the individual within a couple days, traffic them to Texas and eventually some gulag overseas.
Reminds me of some movie, maybe someone recalls the name, set in Vietnam (or was it Indian Country?). The protagonist orders his minions to “shoot em all and let God sort em out”.
MarkO
Or, as Kurtz says in Heart of Darkness: “Exterminate all the brutes!”
Trump’s latest ravings do make him sound line the crazy guy livin’ way upriver. Instead of heads on pikes and pikes of skulls, he has gold on the walls. Now he’s going after Greenland because Norway didn’t give him the Nobel. The horror! The horror!
-MM
I didn’t realize that Coppola copped the Brando character name straight from Conrad’s novel. I knew the story was based on Heart of Darkness but with different setting and characters. Apparently he felt no name other than Kurtz would do for that apex character.
Speaking of notable quotes from notorious film characters, you guys remember this?
“”I think one of the most
interesting aspects of Milwaukee is
the fact that it’s the only major
American city to have ever elected
three socialist mayors.”
–Alice Cooper, Wayne’s World
MO
Unfortunately, this MSP string needs an update. (3) takes re the killing of Alex Jeffrey Pretti—Green Bay Prebble grad ICYMI.
- When is enough enough? Did they finally overstep?—not just the killing but the out of control pepper spraying, other recent jaw droppers and many more torts from yesterday —more on whackos on point in a second.
- Guess: An ICE agent shouted “We got his gun”…or “he had a gun”. It was misheard, amidst the clamor, (fog of war), as “He’s got a gun”. The only explanation I can think of why a man pinned down clutching a cell phone gets 10 bullets. The whackos on point factor.
- Whackos on point —deep dive.
- First: To be fair during the George Floyd incident some folks (me), did not have the knee jerk rxn to defund the police. What I saw (and read) was a very large dude, high on something, just helped himself to a pack of smokes at the convenience store, (owner called cops if memory serves) and, well, I had some sympathy for the new centurion who’d have to deal with this guy. Placing self squarely in the shoes of cop, Yikes, you need someone with both size and gonads to subdue a dude like GF. Social services skills?—fugheddaboutit. Most judging this didn’t dwell on the grist, rather, blithely assume there are dudes trained and paid for this. So naïve. It’s not like (30) Dwayne Johnson’s, with masters and time in grade with social services skills are at their disposal. Now, I’m not letting Derek Chauvin off the hook for murder—just establishing the point that society has no perfect tool for law enforcement—during ordinary interactions.
- Second: The old adage: There is a fine line between criminal and cop character type. Just fact checked that—will put the answer in a separate note—seems to be true, but I did learn something subtle.
- Last: So here we are with ICE. OMG. This is all speculation but I’m guessing they’ve been dangling a ton of cash to anyone with a pick-up truck and solid racist/sexist/ resume. Pedophile is probably frowned upon but not a deal breaker. Most with zero training, literally hired off the street, well compensated—does the gobment supply the roids?
(Slight) Correction: The Atlantic reports much of ICE hiring was done at gun shows and white supremacy groups.
My spiel is, the job is hard enough to get someone not out of control to deal with petty theft, here we sit with whackos on point for complex interactions.
- Oh and of course I’m in the weeds again. Forest from the trees. Big picture: The enforcement is civil war. Gov’t vs Dems. Florida and Texas are where the majority of immigrants are. This is Trump/Miller waging civil war. Ethnic cleansing, (suppression). The ‘ethnicity’ is dems/anyone not willing to acquiesce.
-d.
Yesterday’s killing of Alex Pretti yesterday was pretty brutal and horrifying. The video of the scene is explicit and appears to show a protester filming ICE agents with his camera phone (heck, the governor of Minnesota encouraged citizens to film ICE agents peacefully). He then stepped between ICE agents and another protester being pepper sprayed before being tackled, pummeled and shot 10 times by ICE agents. I found it curious that the video shows the ICE agents jumping off Pretti after shooting him. Even they seemed horrified by what they did.
Like me, Pretti graduated from Green Bay Preble, ran track, attended a Big Ten school and worked at the VA. He was considerably younger than me (ha ha who isn’t these days), but we shared similar backgrounds. He lived about 2 miles from where he was shot and was likely invested in his neighborhood. The point is, he is not different from me or you. He loves his country, cares deeply and worries about the future we leave for our children and grandchildren.
He had a constitutional right to assemble peacefully, protest and conceal and carry a firearm. Given the situation, I don’t think it was a good idea to carry a weapon on the same streets patrolled by dozens of trigger happy ICE agents. Regardless, he was performing a civic duty others may or may not agree with.
Dave, enjoyed your email about similarities between police and criminals.
JK
The commonalities between yourself and Mr. Pretti are eerie indeed. I agree it was not wise to bring a gun to one of these events/situations. Not unless you want to become a martyr. Becoming a martyr may be the best possible outcome of that decision. The other possible outcomes go from bad to worse. People want to stress our constitutional rights to such a degree that they lose sight of what comes next. Because you have a right to conceal and carry doesn’t mean you should.
There’s lots of loose talk on the socials about people needing to arm themselves to face down ICE. Really? How is that going to work? I suspect some of that talk is coming from Agent Provocateurs, either from inside or outside the government.
MarkO
Bots,
Pretti seemed like an awesome guy. He could have been any of us who’ve gone to a protest. I’ve been lucky enough not to encounter any ICE psychopaths, but it’s probably just a matter of time. I have to hand it to Minneapolis; marching in subzero temps and double-digit wind chills was beyond tough–and it seems to be working. As of this writing, Bovino has been fired and Noem is rumored to be on the chopping block (I hope any number of dogs are invited to witness the execution), so maybe the protests are working.
CEOs are starting to grow backbones, too, and now Congress is talking about stopping ICE funding. I won’t say we’ve turned the corner, but I think they’re going to (at least on this drive) punt. I don’t think Trump has quit, however. He’s like a rat in the town dump right.
By the way, what’s up with the Epstein files?
GC
What’s up with Epstein files?
Mark O.
Yeah, interesting parallels between Alex Pretti and John Knox (and they both have an X in their name..hmmm). But really, those similarities sorta make Pretti’s murder hit even closer to home, making it clear that, God forbid, it could have been John or any one of us getting tackled and shot dead by a bunch of ICE thugs.
As I watched a few videos of the murder, I was astounded by the incompetence, recklessness and hostility on display by the ICE goon squad. When I was on the Fire department, we were called to many incidents with Milwaukee Police. Sure, some of the cops behaved like macho jerks, but at least they were well-trained and restrained macho jerks and, as Dave’s investigation on cops and criminals showed, their worst impulses were kept in check by the constrainsts, training, and discipline established by the city and the department. Contrast that with the video showing a gaggle of ICE knuckleheads strutting around the street all wllly-nilly and aggressively pushing folks around, like their sole mission was just to mess with people and antagonize them. Even the dopes appointed by Trump to lead ICE had to grasp on some level that sending out these untrained, unconstrained, heavily-armed dimwits into cities where nobody wants them could not possibly end well for anyone. All we can hope for is that this latest murder is the tipping point and, like Geoff says, maybe the nation has finally turned the corner.
DC