With Blood on His Hands, Trump Is Eager To Invoke Insurrection Act
INSIDE: Todd Blanche ... Tim Walz ... Pam Bondi
lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
Programming Note
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Another Federal Shooting in Minneapolis
I was in the midst of preparing a Morning Memo arguing that Minneapolis is shaping up to be the catalyzing moment that President Trump was looking for to justify doing what he has wanted to do since his first term: invoke the Insurrection Act … when he posted exactly that to Truth Social:
For months, Trump has been trying to instigate civil unrest that would provide the pretext for a U.S. military crackdown on protestors by provoking clashes with federal agents first in Los Angeles, then in Portland, and finally in Chicago. I’ve been puzzling over why he may succeed in Minneapolis when he failed elsewhere, but I don’t think it has much to do with Minnesotans or the elected Democrats in the blue state, but rather with the escalating use of violence that culminated with the shooting of U.S. citizen Renee Good which, critically, was captured on video from multiple angles.
That eruption of violence, while spontaneous, was an entirely foreseeable result of a mass deportation policy built on provocation, retribution against blue states, a rotten policing culture, inadequate training of new agents, machismo, and swaggering belligerence operating under the color of law.
The bellicosity of thousands of masked armed agents swarming the streets of Minneapolis has been amplified, echoed, and reinforced by the highest officials in the land, including President Trump, rather than tamped down.
Last night, in a startlingly provocative social media post after another shooting involving a federal agent, deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche called the protests there an “insurrection,” baselessly accused Minnesota elected Democratic leaders of “terrorism” for “encouraging violence against law enforcement,” and threatened to “take whatever means necessary” to stop them. Not whatever legal means or whatever constitutional means or whatever prosecutorial means but a bare “whatever means.” Whatever that means.
Blanche’s Rambo rhetoric came the same evening that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz gave a brief six-minute televised address to the state. “This long ago stopped being a matter of immigration enforcement. Instead, it’s a campaign of organized brutality against the people of Minnesota by our own federal government,” Walz said.
In a remarkably stark assessment of the clash between a blue state and the Trump administration, Walz warned the people of Minnesota: “Donald Trump wants this chaos. He wants confusion. And, yes, he wants more violence on our streets. We cannot give him what he wants. We can, we must, protest loudly, urgently, but also peacefully. … We cannot and will not let violence prevail.”
The latest rhetorical clash came on an evening when a federal agent in Minneapolis shot an undocumented Venezuelan man in the leg. Both men were hospitalized after the incident. According to official account from the Department Homeland Security — which has been notoriously unreliable throughout the nationwide mass deportation operation — the agent was chasing the man after he fled a traffic stop and crashed his vehicle:
The law enforcement officer caught up to the subject on foot and attempted to apprehend him when the subject began to resist and violently assault the officer. While the subject and law enforcement were in a struggle on the ground, two subjects came out of a nearby apartment and also attacked the law enforcement officer with a snow shovel and broom handle.
As the officer was being ambushed and attacked by the two individuals, the original subject got loose and began striking the officer with a shovel or broom stick.
Fearing for his life and safety as he was being ambushed by three individuals, the officer fired a defensive shot to defend his life. The initial subject was hit in the leg.
Like Blanche, the DHS statement also accused Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey of “actively encouraging an organized resistance to ICE and federal law enforcement officers.”
Protests erupted after the latest shooting incident, and protestors clashed with state and federal law enforcement. “For several hours Wednesday evening, law enforcement and about 200 demonstrators confronted each other in the street, with chemical irritants and flash bangs being deployed and some protesters vandalizing vehicles at the end of the night,” the Star Tribune reported.
We are edging closer to crossing that fateful line when the military is called to put down civil unrest that has not just been provoked but sought after by a president eager to use retributive violence against his political foes while DHS puts out snuff videos that are, as Greg Sargent put it, “consciously depicting the unleashing of ICE on wicked, urban, cosmopolitan, non-MAGA America as a sustained act of cleansing, restorative violence.”
Chart of the Day
The Latest on the Renee Good Shooting
Mary Moriarty, the top prosecutor in Minneapolis, said that lack of access to the federal investigation was “not a complete barrier” to the prosecution of the ICE agent on state charges for the shooting of Renee Good.
The six federal prosecutors in the Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office who resigned rather than investigate the political activities of Good’s widow have been deemed “fired” by at the direction of Attorney General Pam Bondi, the NYT reports: “That move cut off pay and benefits they would otherwise have received for weeks after having resigned.”
Mass Deportation Watch
Minnesota Public Radio: Minnesotans describe their encounters with ICE, being detained: ‘I was flooded with fear’
NYT: How ICE Crackdowns Set Off a Resistance in American Cities
WaPo: ICE and activists clash over doxing and privacy, in court and streets
TPM’s Kate Riga: Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson takes a swipe at “Kavanaugh stops” in unrelated dissent
AP: US apologizes for mistake in deporting 19-year-old Babson College freshman Any Lucia Lopez Belloza, but defends her removal.
Quote of the Day
“For those who were there, imagine the flood in New Orleans but instead of federal neglect it’s federal violence. Again and again. And wracked with rage and sadness, people are showing up for each other, again and again.”–Minnesota author Michael Tisserand, who wrote a book about being displaced from New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina, on the federal occupation of his home state
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Agent Ross and his "internal bleeding" plaint...so after many days have passed since the encounter with Reneé Good and her Honda Pilot, and loads of videos surfacing virtually giving the lie to claims of Ross "getting run over" by Good, Weiss News publishes an account yesterday from "two govt. sources" claiming "internal injuries" suffered by Ross.
Well, why were those claims not made in the hours or one or two days later to add credence to the "struck by vehicle" claim? Short answer: Never happened. Or, there was a bruise (of unknown origin), call it a hematoma, reclassify as "internal bleeding"
I live in St. Paul. There is no violence here! Other than the violence being perpetrated upon citizens and immigrants by the agents of ICE. Please understand that the people of Minnesota are using restraint even as they observe and bear witness. As Renee Good's widow says, we have whistles, they have guns. Those images from last night are all of violence by ICE upon the neighborhood--tear gas and pepper balls and flash bangs and bullets. The neighbors had--what, snow shovels? And snowballs? Come on! Your comment "I’ve been puzzling over why he may succeed in Minneapolis when he failed elsewhere" and it troubles me. Do not think that Minnesotans are bringing anything upon themselves. We have thousands of ICE agents here, far, far more than we have of our own law enforcement. ICE is absolutely unfettered--they are pulling people over and boxing them in when people are doing nothing more than driving down the street. They are breaking car windows (they seem to love to do that) and cutting seat belt straps and hauling people out and throwing them on the ground and then stuffing them in unmarked vans and driving them off to a detention center. The Minnesotans are not violent. We are not fighting back. We are watching, following and videoing--and those gentle things seem to infuriate the ICE people. And in any case, it doesn't matter. There is nobody who can stop them--except the Republican party. Call Tom Emmer. Call Pete Stauber. Ask them if THIS is what they want for their state.