Defending the Indefensible

I began writing my penultimate post titled The Winter of Our Discontent this past January 6th, on the fifth anniversary of one of American's darkest days, the day of the insurrection at the United States Capitol Building. That event and the subsequent actions of this current administration, rewriting (whitewashing if you prefer) that day's history, inspired me to write about another case of rewriting history, namely the story of King Richard III of England. 

Little did I know the next day, January 7th, would be another day of infamy for this country, and would unfortunately provide even more inspiration for that post. It was the day Renee Macklin Good was murdered by a federal agent on the streets of Minneapolis.

Like so many of the events in the news lately, I learned about the killing from my news junkie mother who called me at work to tell me that ICE had just shot and killed a woman in the Twin Cities. What struck me was how much the story sounded like an event that took place in a suburb of Chicago where a man was shot dead by ICE as he drove away while they were trying to apprehend him. The "official" version of that story was as the man was driving away, one of the agents was dragged along by his car (not quite sure how that is possible), and fearing for his life, the ICE guy shot the man dead. 

It sounded suspicious and in normal times an event such as that would have been investigated and remained in the news cycle for at least a couple weeks. But in this shitstorm of chaos we've been living through since the return of this administration a year ago, something else came up that grabbed all the attention, the murder of Charlie Kirk.

Anyway just like in Chicago, a similar story, woman gets shot as she uses her vehicle as a weapon against officers, almost killing one of them. So said the director of Homeland Security at a press conference where she inexplicably sported an enormous cowboy hat. The president chimed in saying the officer was taken to the hospital and we are all praying for his survival and a speedy recovery from the terrible tragedy that befell him. 

Later that day when I had a free moment, I googled "ICE shooting in Minneapolis." I clicked on the first link to come up which happened to be a live feed from Fox News. What they were showing was the aftermath of the shooting with I'd say several dozen angry demonstrators confronting masked ICE agents in their para-military getups who were throwing cannisters of tear gas into the crowd. 

As could be expected, the Fox reporter on the scene was denouncing the protestors, blaming the civil disorder on the governor of Minnesota and the mayor of Minneapolis for not cooperating with and protecting the federal authorities. Little was said about the shooting however, other than the remarks from the cowgirl with the ten gallon hat. This is what she had to say:

It was an act of domestic terrorism.

Our officers were out in enforcement action, (and) got stuck in the snow because of the adverse weather that is in Minneapolis. They were attempting to push out their vehicles when a woman attacked them and those surrounding them and rammed them with her vehicle. An officer of ours acted quickly and defensively shot to protect himself and the people around him and my understanding is that she was hit and is deceased. 

Here's the video in case you think I'm making it up or taking her words out of context.

Although videos of the shooting had already surfaced, Fox in their infinite wisdom did not choose to show them, at least not while I was watching.

As I've become skeptical about virtually everything I see or read on Fox, I assumed they weren't telling the complete story, but I did assume that at least some of what they said in this case had a trace of credibility.

It wasn't until I got home and actually saw the videos that I realized everything coming out of the cowgirl's mouth at that press conference, except the part about the victim being deceased, was a bold faced lie, even the part about the cars being stuck in the snow.

I assume that by now you dear reader like the whole world have seen the multiple videos of Renee Good's murder, and how the whole notion of her attacking ICE agents with her vehicle as they were stuck in the snow is preposterous.

If by chance you haven't seen the videos, by all means do, you won't have any problem finding them online.

From those videos, all of them, you realize that without a shred of doubt, Renee Good did not ram her vehicle into anybody.

You've seen how she turned her steering wheel to the right to avoid hitting the man who would kill her, and how he recklessly and foolishly did something you are taught on day one of Police Academy never to do, he placed himself in front of her car. And you've no doubt seen how Renee Good's last act on earth as captured by the cellphone of her murderer, was smiling and telling him that she's not mad at him. 

Those were probably her last words before she was shot and then presumably unconscious, rammed her car into a another car.

And if you saw the video captured by her murderer's cellphone, you no doubt heard him call the woman he had just mortally wounded a "fucking bitch."

Horrifying as Renee Good's murder was, even worse was the administration's reaction to it. While they obviously had to revise the cowgirl's initial depiction of events, they doubled down on the domestic terrorism part, insisting that Renee Good and her wife who was present at the scene were up to no good. And while not saying it in so many words, this administration by their acts and deeds convinced many Americans that Ms. Good deserved to die.

As far as conducting an honest and thorough investigation into the shooting as should and would happen in any civilized society, the Feds banned state authorities from investigating the crime, AND instead of investigating the acts of the shooter, they conducted investigations of the victim and her spouse. 

I say the government's reaction was worse than the killing itself because by their inaction, the administration explicitly gave ICE agents the license to kill, which they they took full advantage of last Saturday, not far from where they killed Renee Good. 

Again it was my mother who broke the news, this time as my son and I visited her. "Did you hear what happened?" she asked.

This time watching on her TV, the cowgirl, without the signature hat, addressed the nation in a press conference, telling us that the man, Alex Pretti, whom ICE agents just killed, was another domestic terrorist, this time one who was brandishing a gun and threatened ICE agents with it. According to her, he was set on doing grave bodily harm to law enforcement officials. Another high ranking member of the current administration, the one who bears a strong resemblance to Joseph Goebbels, called the shooting victim a would-be-assassin.

Here is the cowgirl's press conference shortly after the death of Alex Pretti. I've chosen to link to a version of it in its entirety (rather the edited version) which includes remarks about other topics, so as not to take anything she said out of context.

This time I already saw videos of the shooting so I had an idea of what really happened. It was obvious from the get go that she was jiving. Alex Pretti did have a gun on him but at no time did he have his hands on it. The only thing he was "brandishing" was his cellphone, recording the men who were about to kill him.

When my mom left the room I asked my son to switch to Fox to see how they were covering the story.

Remember by this time, the videos of the shooting had already been widely shown, except of course on Fox, but I'm guessing even they in their heart of hearts knew that the government's version was bullshit.

So they had to come up with ways to defend the indefensible.

In the roughly ten minutes we watched Fox, I remember several points they made.

They keep making these points a week after Alex Pretti's murder:

1. Most of the demonstrators we are seeing on the streets of Minneapolis are in fact, outside agitators.
2. Why aren't the people in the streets protesting the deaths of (fill in names of victims of violent acts committed by illegal immigrants).
3. Why was Alex Pretti carrying a gun?
4. The Feds sent ICE to other cities where the citizens there did not respond in protest as did the people of Minneapolis.
5. The actions of the government are acceptable because the American people elected a president who promised to rid this country of illegal immigrants.  
6. Why don't the protesters stay at home and let law enforcement officials just do their jobs?

Let's look at these points one by one:

Number one on the list is one of this president's favorite tropes which he uses every time he's asked about the unrest in cities like Minneapolis.

It's merely a smokescreen to discredit the protesters and to trivialize the real anger and sense of betrayal by their government which is prevalent among them. As is common with this president, he presents no evidence to back up his accusations. Why? Because there is no evidence of paid outside agitators at these protests. 

Number two is one of the favorite tactics of the MAGA crowd, cherry picking real tragedies and using them as anecdotal evidence to pin the blame on entire communities for the actions of a few. In the case of Minneapolis, the administration is using a fraud scheme allegedly perpetrated by members of the local Somali community, to demand that all Somali refugees (whom the president collectively labeled as "garbage") be sent back to their war torn country.

People of good will by nature are appalled and mourn individuals who lose their lives to violence of any kind. This is not a case of valuing the lives of Renee and Alex over the lives of other crime victims. The difference is we know the undocumented killers of the people MAGA mentions were illegal because they have been identified, apprehended and presumably ended up in jail. Of course that doesn't bring these poor folks back but at least they and their families received some justice.

By contrast, that's not the case of the murderers of Renee Good and Alex Pretti who have also been identified but as of yet anyway, have not been held accountable. What's more, these killers are public servants who draw their paychecks from our tax dollars. By extension, that means Good and Pretti were killed in our name.

The anger of people in the Twin Cities, all over the nation, and indeed much of the rest of the world, is over justice, pure and simple. That shouldn't be too hard to figure out.

I happen to agree with point number three, that is, had Alex Pretti not been carrying a gun that morning, he'd probably be alive today, although possibly still in the hospital due to the thrashing he received from the ICE agents and the chemicals they sprayed into his face. My opinion has always been that private citizens have no business carrying firearms in public, concealed or open. As a matter of fact, I'm delighted that MAGA agrees with me on this issue and maybe we can get together to come up with a plan that puts an end to this dangerous activity. 

Are you with me on that MAGA? 

I didn't think so. The irony is so thick on this one, you'd need a chainsaw to cut through it. Agree with the law or not on this issue and I certainly don't, Alex Pretti was well within his legal rights to carry a gun.

Number four is a point I keep hearing from Republican legislators who while publicly expressing dismay over these two murders, apparently feel the need to throw a bone at their MAGA base. But saying other cities who have had ICE sent their way, haven't protested the way Minneapolitans have, is like a father saying "I don't get it, I beat all my children equally but only little Johnny seems to have a problem with it. What's wrong with that kid?"

Number five is particularly interesting as it really cuts to the chase about how our government is supposed to work. Yes, elections as Barak Obama pointed out early in his first administration have consequences. And yes, the majority gets to pick who represents them in government while the minority has to accept that fact that not everything the government does will be to their liking.

But the minority has the right to expect that what the government does will be in accordance with the law as spelled out in the Constitution, and can expect that their own rights and the rights of others will not be violated. 

In the case of the mass deployment of ICE agents in cities across the the nation, those agents are not the police and are not the military, meaning they do not have the authority of either, Their charge is to investigate and if necessary detain and deport individuals who are in the country illegally, that's it. 

This gang of thugs is going much farther however, stopping people on the street, undocumented and American citizens alike, including children, demanding proof of their citizenship. People are being held in detention centers without being formally charged with anything, and people are being deported, at times to countries they have no connection to, without due process, all in violation of the law, not to mention plain human decency. 

During the last election, the current president claimed the focus on the purge would be people who have committed serious crimes. And yet in their purges of immigrant communities, ICE members don't discriminate; anyone who appears to be from someplace else, especially if they happen to have black or brown skin including irony of ironies, Native American people, stands the risk of being stopped for no other reason by these goons, and if they don't have the papers to prove on the spot that they are either citizens or are here "legally" as immigrants, they are in for serious consequences. 

I had that happen to me in Russia, par for the course there I figured. But never in my wildest dreams did I think it could happen here. 

The fact is, it gets to be a little tricky when a government who is supposed to enforce the law, willfully ignores or outright breaks it. Then what?

Which brings us to point number six, why don't these people just mind their own business and let the law enforcers do their job?

That question reminds me of the second most heart wrenching scene from the 2019 film Jojo Rabbit which is set in a German town near the close of the Second World War. In the scene, Jojo, a young boy about ten years of age and his mother walk into the town square to encounter a ghastly scene, four townspeople hanging from a gallows. 

"What did they do?" Jo Jo asked his mother.

Her response is just as relevant today as it was for the time and place the film was set. She said to her son:

"Whatever they could."

I know MAGA folks get offended when the administration they so dutifully support is compared to totalitarian regimes of the past.

But anyone with a modicum of knowledge of history can easily see parallels between the actions of this administration and those of dictatorships of the past and indeed, those of the present.

Case in point, just one of many: This administration is claiming that the deployment to cities of thousands of members of para military force is a good faith effort to improve the safety of the places where they are sent. 

But wouldn't logic tell you that any good faith effort by the Feds aimed towards public safety would involve providing help by working with local law enforcement officials rather than having thousands of poorly trained wannabe soldiers descend on a city without the local officials being consulted? 

Think of it this way, if your house had mice, one thing you might do is get a cat. You obviously wouldn't get a mountain lion because despite it being much more powerful than a domestic cat, a mountain lion wouldn't be as good as catching mice, and it certainly would create far more problems than it would solve. 

The Minneapolis Police Department has 600 officers. Over 2,000 ICE agents have been deployed to the city. Sounds to me like a mountain lion where a cat would be much more effective. Here's a little bit of anecdotal evidence that might back that up;  so far this year there have been three homicides in Minneapolis, and two of those were committed by federal agents. 

Doesn't sound like they're helping much as far as public safety goes. 

Call the people in the current administration whatever you like, but they're not idiots. They're sending mountain lions to cities like LA, Chicago and Minneapolis to name just three knowing full well the damage they're causing those places. That's the point. 

In his 2024 campaign for president, the current occupant of the White House made a most peculiar campaign promise. He said: "I will be your retribution." Finding the answer to why anyone would find that a sensible reason to vote for a presidential candidate is way beyond my pay grade, but by saying that, he made clear what his top priority was, to get back at all the people who pissed him off at one time or other. 

So far, he has made good on that promise. He has at least three gripes with Minnesota which very likely explains his deployment of mountain lions to that state. One of his most despised members of Congress is naturally one of his biggest critics, Ilhan Omar whose district includes Minneapolis. Omar herself is a Somalian refugee which may explain his particular bias against her fellow countrymen.

Next, he claims (of course without evidence) that he won the state of Minnesota in the past three presidential elections, despite the election results proving otherwise. He lost Minnesota three times. 

He's also pissed off at the governor who had the nerve of running on the ticket that opposed him in the last election. To add insult to injury, said governor called the then candidate for president something that he could not tolerate. I don't think he'd have a problem being called a wannabe dictator, a despot in waiting, or simply vile and cruel. In fact he'd probably concur on all of those labels. No, the thing Tim Walz called him that truly got under his skin was this, he called him "weird." 

That was the last straw.

It's obvious to me that this unnecessary deployment of thousands of federal agents to the state of Minnesota and especially to the Twin Cities is an attempt to intimidate and punish its elected officials and its residents. I'll go further to say it is also attempt to lure people into violence, (so far unsuccessful), which would empower him to declare a state of emergency and ultimately suspend upcoming elections. 

Far fetched you say? Well before January 6, 2021, if you had told me that thousands of rioters would at the behest of the president break into the Capitol Building in an attempt to overturn the election and to murder the vice president for his refusal to be complicit in their plan, I'd say that was pretty far fetched as well. 

If you can provide a reasonable argument refuting that, I'm all ears.

If not, then you're just going to have to accept that this is what dictators do.

We could all follow the advice of people like the current vice president who says that if we have a problem with the government, we should do what I do, that is write blogs and social media posts criticizing it.

But what we've seen in the past month is that without people being out in the streets, confronting and recording the acts of an out of control government as Renee Good, Alexi Pretti and thousands like them continue to do, the rest of us would just have to take the word of the cowgirl, the Joseph Goebbels lookalike and the current resident of the White House, and accept their blatant lies.

Which brings me full circle, back to the incident in Franklin Park, Illinois that took place last September. There was nobody there to videotape the killing of Silvero Villegas-Gonzalez, so consequently we haven't a clue exactly how or why he died. All we can assume after what went down this month in Minneapolis is that the "official" version is wrong. 

The difference between people like Renee Good, Alex Pretti, the folks out in the streets with their cellphones, and me, is that I am by and large a coward, while they are heroes.

That's why they don't just sit at home minding their own business.

Thank God for that.