Odds and Ends — 28 January 2026

Federal agents are still on the streets of the Twin Cities a day after the Trump administration announced a change in immigration enforcement in Minnesota.

Veterans, former FBI agent warn Minneapolis is a 'testing ground' for federal abuse of power

A Mess of His Own Making

President Donald Trump’s partial retreat on immigration enforcement in Minneapolis is a mess of his own making. His approach to immigration long has been one of denigration, bluster and extravagant promises. But heavy-handed tactics and two killings in Minnesota have generated a predictable public backlash. What next for the president?
The killing of Alex Pretti on Saturday, coming just two weeks after the shooting death of Renée Good, represents a crisis moment for Trump’s immigration policy. The tentative steps he has taken to de-escalate may offer him some breathing room. But will he learn from the mistakes that have brought him to this moment? History suggests no, because it would require a fundamental rethinking of his immigration policy.

https://twitter.com/taylr/status/2016294967325417697

https://twitter.com/prem_thakker/status/2016224431308202428

https://twitter.com/allenanalysis/status/2016182794385240393

https://twitter.com/JamesTate121/status/2016217753296728147

Trump Has Defined Deviancy Down

The puppy-killing ICE Barbie has been benched; Greg Bovino, the cosplaying Himmler has been fired. And Trump has dispatched Border Czar Tom Homan to Minneapolis…
While the humiliation of Kristi Noem and Bovino’s defenestration are delicious, we should stifle any naive exuberance about what’s happening here.
On the surface, it looks like Trump blinked… Unfortunately, this is piffle on stilts… Indeed, regarding the deployment of Tom Homan as ‘conciliatory’ is what Daniel Patrick Moynihan once described as ‘defining deviancy down’ — shifting standards to redefine anti-social or deviant behavior as more or less normal.

https://twitter.com/vincempls/status/2015505197020090576

https://twitter.com/EuropeanPowell/status/2016059755383406858

https://twitter.com/TheRickWilson/status/2016151835938054405

https://twitter.com/kenklippenstein/status/2016270135548403944

https://twitter.com/KyleKulinski/status/2016243426782532040

https://twitter.com/GraceRoe5142/status/2016198541270561241

There is No Trump 'Shift'

His change in tone is a distraction, not a retraction…
President Trump and his team lied about what we all saw in Minneapolis. Now they want us to believe they’re atoning. Don’t believe them.

https://twitter.com/nxthompson/status/2016116317980389473

https://twitter.com/lydiakauppi/status/2016021224204247254

https://twitter.com/nxthompson/status/2016121767178158316

Abolish ICE? How about DHS altogether.

Many are talking about better training and body cameras for ICE agents, or getting rid of the agency altogether. This is another option.

https://twitter.com/LincolnsBible/status/2016212667279499323

https://twitter.com/infinite_jaz/status/2016240132811010499

———— Autocracy R Us ————

https://twitter.com/ReichlinMelnick/status/2016155231638188066

https://twitter.com/DeanObeidallah/status/2016293449146777807

https://twitter.com/harryjsisson/status/2016320374531661863

https://twitter.com/TheRickWilson/status/2016136505534665213

In 16 shooting incidents since July, no DHS officers have faced charges

https://twitter.com/SeidelContent/status/2015927358071402999

https://twitter.com/gtconway3d/status/2016175360015053274

ICE watchers in Maine say they were threatened by federal agents

https://twitter.com/ReportingfromNY/status/2016201002815266842

https://twitter.com/TimHannan/status/2016150867221545175

Does Evidence Even Matter?

We think democracy is the flag, the ability to vote, or words in the Constitution. It is not. Democracy is an idea, an ideal, an agreement. Once you decide evidence does not matter if it hurts your team, you have already lost the thing you think you are defending. We are not seeing what is happening to us.
Red Sox vs. Yankees. Mac vs. Windows. Harmless tribalism. Then the internet scaled it to everything. Cable news figured it out first. Outrage gets ratings. Social networks weaponized it. Algorithms reward tribal warfare. Fight harder, see more content that makes you angrier. That’s the business model.
Divide and rule. The oldest trick in the book, supercharged by platforms built to profit from our blindness.

https://twitter.com/MattLech/status/2016012045011812573

Trump Administration Social Media Posts Echo White Supremacist Messaging

Rep. Ilhan Omar attacked during town hall meeting in Minneapolis

A Dem Senator’s Harsh Takedown of Trump: “Breaking Point”

As Trump scrambles to contain the damage from the latest ICE horrors, Senator Chris Murphy offers a sharp indictment of Trump-ICE lawlessness—and explains how Dems can meet the urgency of the moment…
“I will say in the past, Republicans have just waited us out because they thought that we would break. And we have broken in the past. And this would be, I think, a very dangerous moment for us to do that because of the very specific moral question being put to the nation: Does the president of the United States get to murder American citizens? The answer to that question has to be no, but it likely will only be no if we’re in a position to win this fight.”

One Bovino After Another

The Supreme Court in its wisdom created what is, in practice, total criminal immunity for the president. The Constitution’s mechanisms for restraining a president—the impeachment clause and the Twenty-fifth Amendment—have been proven to be dead letters. In 237 years they have never once performed their intended functions; there is no reason to believe that they might suddenly become functional in the future.
So our president is now a defined-term king. He cannot be removed and he cannot be prosecuted. His ambitions are limited only by his own sense of morality.
The only way to constrain this new American Caesar is to create disincentives for those who would carry out his orders. To rob future presidents of the foot soldiers needed to wage a war against the half of America they dislike.
And the way to create those disincentives is to bring the maximum force of law against every agent of the government who broke any federal or state law under Trump.

https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/2016279951461216449