Saturday 9!

Saturday 9: Big Star (1962)

On Saturdays I take a break from the heavy stuff and have some fun… 

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Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.

1) Shelley Fabares sings that when she hears her lover's records on the radio, they bring back memories. Do you prefer familiar songs or do you seek out new music?

Well lets just say I’m locked in the 60s and 70s

2) Shelley introduced "Big Star" on an episode of The Donna Reed Show, where she played daughter Mary. She remembers the show's star and her TV mom, Donna Reed, as "an extraordinary woman." Who is your favorite TV mom?

Hmm… I never really thought about that. I guess Shirley Jones.

3) Speaking of big stars, Shelley made three movies with Elvis, who said she was his favorite leading lady. What qualities do you value in a coworker? 

Willing to mentor.

4) Though best known for comedy, Shelley appeared as Cathy in a made-for-TV adaptation of Wuthering Heights. Have you ever read the Emily Bronte classic?

Who? Oh…  Wuthering Heights. I read the Cliff Notes.

5) Shelley Fabares' aunt was Broadway, film and TV veteran Nanette Fabray. Do you have a favorite aunt or uncle?

No… sadly I no longer have any aunts or uncle. I am only one step away from being the matriarch.

6) In the 1990s she was twice nominated for an Emmy Award (Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy) for her work on Coach. She didn't win. Millions of viewers got to see her applaud graciously when Laurie (Roseanne) Metcalf's named was announced both times. If you were nominated for a major award and the ceremony was televised, would you get all dressed up and go? Or would you prefer to watch from home?

I would you get all dressed up and go, actually I done that! The last award was from the MCC church, their unsung hero award. 

7) In 1962, when this song was first released, Jack Nicklaus launched his legendary golf career. Do you enjoy playing golf? Do you watch golf on TV?

Miniature golf?

No, I am not much of a sports fan.

8) Also in 1962, Marilyn Monroe bought her first home at the age of 36. Up until then she had always been a renter. Marilyn was residing there at the time of her death that August. How long have you lived at your current address?

1991… the 30 year mortgage is paid off!

 

9) Random question – According to a survey, the average American will kiss 15 different partners over their lifetime. Do you estimate your personal total is more, less, or right on track?

Way off track... a lot less!

Now off to the grocery store!

Wait! There's More!

Yesterday I wrote about what ICE is doing to children in Minneapolis, but there is far more happening across the country.

ICE is building a surveillance network rivaling those of North Korea, China, and Russia.

The powerful tools in ICE’s arsenal to track suspects — and protesters

Biometric trackers, cellphone location databases and drones are among the surveillance technologies that federal agents are tapping in their deportation campaign.

The Washington Post

By Eva Dou, Artur Galocha and Kevin Schaul

January 29, 2026

Federal immigration officers fanning out across Minnesota and other parts of the country are newly equipped with an array of state-of-the-art surveillance technologies, thanks to a bill passed last summer that transformed Immigration and Customs Enforcement into the country’s most highly funded law enforcement agency. ICE has wasted no time spending its war chest, buying new tools ranging from biometric trackers to mobile phone location databases, spyware and drones, while loosening restrictions on how it uses some of these technologies.

These new surveillance powers come at a time when ICE is also pushing the bounds of its traditional role of immigration enforcement. In recent months, ICE leaders, backed by top Trump administration officials, have asserted the authority to use all available tools to monitor and investigate anti-ICE protester networks, including U.S. citizens. Democratic lawmakers and civil rights groups say the agency’s expanding use of its surveillance tools infringes on privacy and free speech rights of immigrants and U.S. citizens alike.

Big Brother is watching you—checking to see if you are naughty or nice!

ICE started using facial recognition technology on the streets over the past year. A new app made by NEC, Mobile Fortify, enables ICE officers to immediately compare phone scans of faces and fingerprints they encounter in the field against databases containing individuals’ immigration status and other biographical information. In the fall, ICE purchased an iris-scanning mobile app that its manufacturer, BI2 Technologies, says can get an identifying read on a person’s eye within seconds from a distance of 15 inches.

“There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment.” George Orwell 1984.

ICE ordered mobile license plate readers from Motorola Solutions in the fall and renewed a contract for Thomson Reuters’s database, which boasts more than 20 billion plate scans, including from private surveillance video feeds. Thomson Reuters has said this data can show, for instance, when an individual registered at one address regularly parks his or her car at another location.

The ACLU reported that Flock is sharing their data with ICE!

There’s been more news recently about the driver-surveillance company Flock. The company has recently been feeling the heat after the revelation that data from its national license plate scanner network was (and likely still is being) shared with Trump Administration agencies including ICE. Recently my colleagues at the ACLU of Massachusetts carried out a broad statewide open-records project, and among their findings is that Flock’s default agreement with police departments gives the company the right to share data with federal and local agencies for “investigative purposes” even if a local department chooses to restrict data to its own officers.

Even in states that bar the distribution of data from speed and red light camera... they are just ignoring the state laws!  That is the scary part, DHS is building a database of "troublemakers" those who are using their Constitutional rights are being monitored by ICE!

Cell-site simulators, also called Stingrays, masquerade as cell towers and trick nearby cellphones to connect, allowing ICE officers to track a phone’s location in real time. The devices, often mounted atop vehicles, are used in two ways. If officers already know the identifying number of the target phone, they can use the cell-site simulator to look for it. They also can scan for all cellphones in the area.

Pro tip: If you are protesting, set your phone to Airplane Mode. This stops location broadcasting while still allowing you to record.

And then there are the drones—not hobby drones, but military-grade systems. The Post writes,

Drones are an increasingly ubiquitous part of federal law enforcement agencies’ field operations, providing real-time aerial video back to a base. One compact model purchased by ICE, the Skydio X10D, is advertised as being able to detect individuals from 7.5 miles away and identify them from 0.8 miles. Many models are equipped with night vision and thermal cameras.

“It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place.” George Orwell 1984.

The Tale of Two Cities opens with the famous, lines:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

And so it is today.

And today, darkness is winning.

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Attacking The Forth Estate!

Once again the Trump adminstration is attacking the press, the church protest in Minneapolis! One of the traits that authoritarian government do is attack the press!

Ex-CNN anchor Don Lemon arrested on charges connected to Minnesota church protest

Lemon’s lawyer said he was taken into custody after attending protest in which demonstrators disrupted a church service earlier in January

The Guardian

Sam Levine, Jeremy Barr and Anna Betts

Fri 30 Jan 2026

Don Lemon, the former CNN anchor, was arrested late on Thursday on charges that he violated federal law during a protest at a church in Minnesota earlier this month, according to his lawyer.

Abbe Lowell, a lawyer for Lemon, said that Lemon was “taken into custody by federal agents last night in Los Angeles, where he was covering the Grammy awards”.

“Don has been a journalist for 30 years, and his constitutionally protected work in Minneapolis was no different than what he has always done,” Lowell said. “The first amendment exists to protect journalists whose role it is to shine light on the truth and hold those in power accountable.

“Instead of investigating the federal agents who killed two peaceful Minnesota protesters, the Trump justice department is devoting its time, attention and resources to this arrest, and that is the real indictment of wrongdoing in this case,” Lowell added. “This unprecedented attack on the first amendment and transparent attempt to distract attention from the many crises facing this administration will not stand. Don will fight these charges vigorously and thoroughly in court.”

Screw the First Amendment!

Lemon is expected to make a court appearance on Friday, CNN reported.

His arrest sparked outrage from former colleagues, first amendment advocates and members of Congress.

“This is outrageous and cannot stand. The First Amendment is under attack in America!” Lemon’s former CNN colleague Jim Acosta wrote in a post on X.

Seth Stern, director of advocacy for the Freedom of the Press Foundation, called Lemon’s arrest “a naked attack on freedom of the press”.

“Lemon’s arrest under a bogus legal theory is a clear warning shot aimed at other journalists,” he said in a statement to the Guardian. “The unmistakable message is that journalists must tread cautiously because the government is looking for any way to target them.”

You know there is something called "Fruit of the poisonous tree" where evidence seized illegally and all that was frond from the illegal seizers cannot be used!

But Fox News has a different view!

Earlier this month, Lemon livestreamed left-wing agitators who stormed St. Paul's Cities Church under the suspicion that its pastor had collaborated with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Lemon told viewers that "the freedom to protest" is what the First Amendment is all about, but Justice Department officials have been working to hold the participants accountable. 

Attorney General Pamela Bondi wrote on X, "At my direction, early this morning federal agents arrested Don Lemon, Trahern Jeen Crews, Georgia Fort, and Jamael Lydell Lundy, in connection with the coordinated attack on Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota."

[...]

The specific charges against Lemon have not been announced. DOJ officials have previously suggested the former CNN star and the other anti-ICE agitators had violated the FACE Act and the Ku Klux Klan Act, among other crimes.

Somebody should really tell Fox News about the First Amendment.

I Like Herring, But Not Red Herring!

The media is making a big thing out what happened eleven days before his murder!

New video appears to show Alex Pretti confronting federal agents 11 days before fatal shooting

Pretti appeared to have his gun on him at the time, though he was only detained briefly

Independent 

Brendan Rascius

January 29, 2026

Alex Pretti, the 37-year-old nurse fatally shot by a federal immigration officer in Minneapolis on Saturday, appeared to confront federal agents less than two weeks before his death, newly published video footage shows.

A video published by The News Movement, a digital media company, seemed to show Pretti kicking a government vehicle and being tackled to the ground on a city street January 13.

The BBC reported on Wednesday that the man in the video “has the same coat, facial hair and gait as Alex Pretti and a facial recognition tool suggests a 97% match.” CNN later reported that Pretti’s family confirmed to the outlet that he is the man in the video.

Okay we have already establish that the fact he carried a gun irrelevant, he was properly licensed to carry it.

“During the altercation, agents fired tear gas and pepper balls into the crowd,” The News Movement narrator says. “They continued to hold the man down before they retreat and he walks away.”

The day before the video was published, sources told CNN that Pretti sustained a broken rib after he was tackled by federal officers roughly a week before he was killed. DHS said it had “no record of this incident.” It’s not clear if the alleged incident is the same one as portrayed in the newly released video.

This has no bearing on the murder!

They are just trying to cloud the fact that he was murdered in clod blood.

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I just want to say, I make no money off of this blog. Nothing at all!

What About The Children?

When they came for us, the gays said "Well they are not coming for marriage!" Well folks they are now coming for marriage!

Influential GOP think tank unveils new attack plan targeting gay families

The Project 2025 authors want to punish and erase same-sex parents.

LGBTQ Nation

Greg Owen

January 28, 2026

The Heritage Foundation, the right-wing, religious-based organization responsible for Project 2025, has issued a new report focused on the family, with devastating guidance targeting LGBTQ+ families out of existence.

“The family is the foundation of every healthy society, and, tragically, the American family is on the brink,” the new report’s authors claim. “We are dangerously close to being unable to reverse the decline. Our country will not survive if families continue to crumble at this rate.”

See? We told you their idea of the “ideal family” is straight out of Father Knows Best.

“There are very few people who are going to fall into what this report considers to be a good family,” Jessica Waters, senior scholar in residence in the Department of Justice, Law and Criminology at the American University’s School of Public Affairs, told the American Independent about the new report. 

Project 2025 has guided much of the second Trump administration’s policy agenda, including erasing transgender identity from the federal government, rebranding federal law to exclude protections for trans and nonbinary people, prosecuting pro-trans educators and librarians as sex offenders, and ending Medicare coverage for gender-affirming care. Many of Project 2025’s anti-LGBTQ+ goals have already been accomplished.

But another aim in the original Project 2025 document is the focus of the new report, titled “Saving America by Saving the Family“: prioritizing heterosexual families and children in government policy.

Their image of a family is James and Margaret, “Princess” and “Bud,” and a dog named “Duchess.”

They want a  "biological” definition of parenthood. Parenthood would be recognized only if there is a biological link between the adult and the child. in their hatred of all things LGBTQ+ they are willing to exclude: 

• Same-sex couples where one or both parents are non-biological
• Adoptive parents
• Many single parents
• Families formed through IVF, surrogacy, or donor conception
• Importantly, this isn’t just about LGBTQ+ families—but they are disproportionately affected.

They really don't care about collateral damage, we see that in ICE. They just don't care who gets hurt in the Jihad against the "undesirables" the immigrant and LGBTQ+ communities.

Then we have the children that will become "bastards" How will it affect them?

When the state says “your family doesn’t count,” children often internalize it as:

• “Something about me or my family is wrong.”
• Research on stigma shows this can lead to:
• Lower self-esteem
• Shame around family identity
• Confusion about belonging

But hey, the Republicans don't care about what happens to the children, they are only interested in power and votes.

My prediction: The Supreme Court will overturn Obergefell v. Hodges under the banner of “states’ rights,” further dividing the nation. The result will be a kind of balkanization—Republican-led states banning marriage equality and persecuting not only the trans community but gay and lesbian people as well, while Democratic-led states continue to protect and celebrate marriage equality. The Fourteenth Amendment be damned.

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Update: 1/30 Midnight

LGBTQ Nation just came out with another article on doing away with marriage equality.

47 anti-LGBTQ+ organizations launch new campaign to end marriage equality

Their strategy will focus on arguing that same-sex couples put their “romantic desires” above the needs of their children.

John Russell (He/Him)

January 29, 2026

A broad coalition of 47 anti-LGBTQ+ organizations announced this week the launch of a campaign to end marriage equality in the U.S.

As People for the American Way’s Right Wing Watch reports, the coalition announced their explicitly anti-equality “Greater Than” campaign on Wednesday via the Heritage Foundation’s The Daily Signal.

The campaign’s core principle is that the sole purpose of marriage is to raise children and that the constitutional right of same-sex couples to legally marry in the U.S., as established by the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, violates children’s rights.

In a statement, Greater Than spokesperson Katy Faust argues that legal same-sex marriage has resulted in “parenthood treated as replaceable, and children deprived of the unique love and guidance only a mother and father can provide.”

This is nothing more then Christian dribble! Oh you need a mother & father to raise a child!

“Ten years of Obergefell have shown us, loud and clear, that children deserve better and that they are Greater Than adult desires,” Faust, the founder of anti-marriage equality organization Them Before Us, adds.

This is there homophobia talking... it is totally bull!

When I came out and looking around our community...

There was a gay couple who were in a 40 year relationship.

There was another gay couple after 20 years together they were finally able to marry.

There was a lesbian grieving for the loss of her partner from cancer.

I know a number of same-sex couples... one couple their daughter just got married... to a man! On the tenth anniversary of Connecticut's at Real Art Ways in Hartford, there sure were a number of ten year old rug-rats running around! They sure looked like a bunch of healthy children.

Things that the right-wing Christians cannot wrap their head around:

• Being LGBTQ+ is not a choice
• LGBTQ+ people can be in a long term relationship
• It is love that makes a relationship

In their little minds they think that their way is the only way and they want to criminalize anyone who doesn't think their way. 

I Was Reading...

An article in "The Nation" by a journalist who covered the West Bank of Palestine and what he said about Minneapolis caught my attention!

Occupied Minnesota

Minneapolis right now reminds me of what I’ve seen during my time in the West Bank.

Ariel Gold

January 28, 2026

As someone who has spent a significant amount of time in the West Bank of Palestine, I know an occupation when I see one—and what is happening in Minnesota right now is an occupation.

I came out to Minneapolis to join the Twin Cities group Multifaith Antiracism, Change & Healing (MARCH) in protesting the atrocities being committed by ICE against the people of their state.

Following a couple of days of nonviolent training, trust building, rallying, marching, and direct action, notice came on Sunday—one day after the horrific murder of Alex Pretti—that our assistance was needed at one of the community’s dual-language (English and Spanish) churches. My responsibility was to make sure that parishioners, who were frequently too afraid to leave their homes, could worship together in relative safety.

[...]

It wasn’t the first time I had done this sort of “protective presence.” Staying for a month or two at a time in the West Bank city of Hebron, I used to spend each weekday morning and afternoon accompanying children to and from schools to protect them from  Israeli soldiers. Just as in Minnesota—wherefive-year-old Luis Ramos was snatched out of his father’s car in the driveway of their home last week—the threat the occupying army posed to Palestinian children was all too real.

But what also is happening is what it is teaching the children! If you look at the children who lived in occupied cities we changes in the lives of them. When they grow up they show a common trait, lack of empathy and caring for others,

In Berlin Germany, London, Beirut, the West Bank, and other sieged cities you see the same thing. The children in Minneapolis will be experiencing psychological effects not only from direct exposure to stressors of the occupied city but also reflect their parents’ chronic stress responses. Emotional contagion, disrupted routines, and modeled coping behaviors create a cascade of influence that shapes children’s development. These have lifelong effects on today's children.

What we see in the children of those cities. for children especially, the long-term effects tend to cluster in a few painful patterns:

• Chronic hypervigilance: kids grow up wired for danger. Loud noises, sudden changes, authority figures—everything can feel threatening decades later.
• Interrupted development: schooling breaks, play disappears, and kids are forced into adult roles too early. That loss doesn’t just “catch up” later.
• Attachment and trust issues: when safety is unreliable, trust becomes conditional. This can show up as emotional distance, intense loyalty to in-groups, or difficulty with intimacy.
• Normalization of violence: not always in obvious ways—sometimes it’s just a muted response to suffering, or a belief that cruelty is inevitable.
• Intergenerational transmission: trauma doesn’t stop with the first generation. Coping mechanisms, fears, and silences get passed down, even when the bombs stop.

The Republicans don't care about the long-term effects on the children, they are are only interested in power and control. They are on a mission to make this a Christian Nation and don't get in their way.

Do you remember "Save Our Children" that the conservatives ran against us? Well I say "What about the children?"

Trump called the rock icon “overrated.”

How To Win And Influence Friends

Well I can tell one way not to...

US sending ICE unit to Winter Olympics for security, prompting concern and confusion in Italy

AP News

By  COLLEEN BARRY, DAVID BILLER and TRISHA THOMAS

January 27, 2026

News that a unit of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement would be present during the upcoming Winter Games has set off concern and confusion in Italy, where people have expressed outrage at the inclusion of an agency that has dominated headlines for leading the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

Homeland Security Investigations, a unit within ICE that focuses on cross-border crimes, frequently sends its officers to overseas events like the Olympics to assist with security. HSI officers are separate from the ICE arm at the forefront of the immigration crackdown known as Enforcement and Removal Operations, and there was no indication ERO officers were being sent to Italy.

To put it mildly, Italian officials are not happy!

Italy reacts to U.S. security deployment

The reaction among some in Italy reflects not only a worsening perception abroad of the administration’s tactics on immigration but also underscores a broader rift between the U.S. under President Donald Trump and its international allies.

Vague reports that ICE would be deployed in some capacity surfaced over the weekend, resulting in a series of online petitions gathering support of people opposed to the presence of ICE at the Games. They followed a RAI news report that aired Sunday showing an Italian news crew being threatened in Minneapolis by ICE agents. Trump’s immigration crackdown has in recent weeks intensified in Minneapolis, leading to the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens at the hands of federal immigration officers.

You know if they send any unit besides HSI and ICE it would probably not cause as much of a flap. But ICE the whole world is watching!

It Is Spreading... Just Like A Disease!

Wherever conservatives rule, we are their targets, even in trans-friendly Canada! In the cold north life is getting chiller.

Life is getting more difficult for trans people living in Alberta, advocates say

Global News

By Meghan Cobb  Global News

Posted January 27, 2026

It’s been two weeks of care and recovery for Anna Murphy as she deals with the fact that she is still here.

“I have been navigating what it is to have survived,” says Murphy. “What it is to now have to live a life I was at peace ending.”

Murphy has dedicated her life to making the world more inclusive. Growing up in rural Alberta, and affirming her identity as a trans woman, sent her on a path that eventually led her back to Calgary, where she says she never went in search of the spotlight, but rather stood up for what she believes is right.

[...]

With a rise in online hate towards the LGBTQ2 community and three Alberta laws that target transgender youth, advocates have been warning mental health crises are on the rise. With Murphy having recently been through the health-care system, she says now is the time for more targeted support.

Psychologists are seeing an increase in trans youth visiting their offices, speaking about the mental health challenges that come with currently living in Alberta.

[...]

“It’s not just mentally draining for them, but damaging for them, making them question their value and worth.”

And that is the goal of the right-wing conservatives, to force us back into the closet!

Advocates mount new challenge to Alberta anti-trans law

Skipping Stone and Egale Canada are headed back to court to try and overturn Alberta’s youth gender-affirming-care ban

Xtra News

By Cody Corrall, Mel Woods 

January 27, 2026

Advocates in Alberta are kicking off 2026 by heading back to court to challenge the Alberta government’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors. 

And this time around, they’re trying a new tactic to circumnavigate Alberta premier Danielle Smith’s use of the Notwithstanding Clause.

Last June, the advocacy groups Egale Canada and Skipping Stone Foundation—on behalf of five Alberta youth and their parents—successfully won a court injunction to pause the law banning gender-affirming care for minors, arguing that the law violated trans youth’s rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. However, that injunction was halted after Smith’s government invoked the notwithstanding clause to force through its three anti-trans laws.

The conservatives' lies are spreading!

In their application to the Alberta Court of King’s Bench, the groups argue that because the law includes criminal penalties for doctors and other medical professionals who administer gender-affirming care to youth, it’s actually federal responsibility, and Smith and her government have no business creating criminal penalties like this.

Have you noticed something? Right-wing conservatives know these laws will be shot down in the courts, but they don’t care. They pass them anyway so they can turn around and complain about “liberal” courts striking down laws that supposedly “protect the children.” That’s the right-wing modus operandi: pass an unconstitutional law, then blame the courts.

Glub, Glub, Glub!

On a lake, when the ice cracks, you can hear it propagate across the water… ICE is doing the same with the Republicans; you can see the cracks spreading.

Slowly, Trump is sinking! He is way down in the polls, and ICE is the albatross pulling him down!

Immigration helped Trump win the White House - now tactics could hurt Republicans in midterms

Reuter

By Bo Erickson, Brad Brooks, Tim Reid and Nathan Layne

January 28, 2026

Summary

• Trump's immigration tactics cause unease among voters, potentially threaten Republican midterm prospects
• Republican strategists warn of political risks from aggressive immigration enforcement
• Democrats see opportunity in opposing Trump's immigration crackdown, aim to mobilize voters
•  President Donald Trump's hardline immigration agenda, a key force behind his return to the White House in 2024, is increasingly showing signs of becoming a liability, threatening Republican prospects in the November midterm elections.

What was once his most potent campaign issue is now driving unease among voters unsettled by the administration’s aggressive tactics in its immigration crackdown, including the targeting of U.S. citizens and violent measures against peaceful protesters.

Illegal immigration and inflation were the twin issues that helped Trump win the election. Now, opinion polls show a growing number of Americans, including key independent voters, are unhappy with Trump's handling of both, putting Republicans on the defensive ahead of the midterms.

The cracks are showing — the people do not like what Trump is doing!

The cracks are spreading.

The lake is no longer silent.

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When your ship is sinking what do you do? Why you abandoned ship and you blame others!

Trump weighing Noem’s ouster at Homeland Security

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem is on “very thin ice,” a White House official told MS NOW.

By Laura Barrón-López, Jake Traylor, Marc Santia, Jacqueline Alemany, and Ali Vitali

Dec. 8, 2025,

White House officials have grown frustrated with Kristi Noem’s leadership of the Department of Homeland Security, leading to calls for a new secretary to more aggressively support key parts of the president’s deportation agenda, two sources familiar with the situation told MS NOW. 

President Trump is considering removing Noem as secretary as early as January, according to a White House official, a current federal official and two former Homeland Security officials.

Noem is on “very thin ice,” a White House official told MS NOW, adding she will likely be replaced early next year. The White House official added that Stephen Miller, President Trump’s deputy chief of staff, is leading the charge to remove Noem.

Frustrations from Miller and other senior White House officials are two-fold. Noem isn’t moving fast enough to build out more detention centers with the money approved in Trump’s big summer spending bill, the White House official and a federal official said. The bill directed $170 billion toward immigration enforcement, with some $75 billion going to ICE alone. That massive cash infusion included $45 billion specifically for detention facilities.

Multiple governors have also called Trump personally and voiced frustration with Noem’s handling of FEMA and disaster relief funds, the White House official told MS NOW.

Now over month later the crack is getting even wider!

Scoop: Blame game erupts over Trump team's false claim Alex Pretti sought "massacre"

Axios

Marc Caputo

Jan 28, 2026

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is under fire for issuing misleading and incendiary information that claimed immigration agents killed an armed Minnesota protestor Saturday because he wanted to "massacre" them.

• That language has now become a source of controversy in the Trump administration.
• White House officials are blaming Customs and Border Patrol for furnishing inaccurate information, while others are targeting Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff and top Trump adviser, six sources with knowledge of the situation told Axios.

Why it matters: The episode illustrates the confusion that gripped the administration after the Saturday shooting death of Minnesota protester Alex Pretti. And it shows the influence of Miller, Trump's close and longest-serving political adviser whose dominion in the White House far exceeds his title.

• Miller's power extends to de facto oversight of Noem, though she's a Cabinet secretary who technically outranks him.
• "Everything I've done, I've done at the direction of the president and Stephen," Noem told a person who relayed her remarks to Axios.

We are now in the blame-game part of the crack!

Between the lines: Miller said the Minnesota operation didn't follow the guidelines established by the White House in the aftermath of the Jan. 7 shooting of another Minneapolis demonstrator, Renee Good.

• Specifically, Miller said, Bovino's crew was supposed to divide its force into two groups: One unit was supposed to handle the arrests of specifically targeted "criminal aliens" and the other squad was in charge of crowd control to keep "disruptors" from interfering.
• "The White House provided clear guidance to DHS that the extra personnel that had been sent to Minnesota for force protection should be used for conducting fugitive operations to create a physical barrier between the arrest teams and the disruptors," Miller said.
• "We are evaluating why the CBP team may not have been following that protocol."

No, no it wasn't me it was... the finger pointing begins!

Pressure mounts on Kristi Noem as Republicans join calls for her to go

Key senators urge resignation as Democrats threaten to impeach DHS secretary if Trump does not fire her

The Guardian

Chris Stein in Washington

Tue 27 Jan 2026

Top House Democrats on Tuesday told Donald Trump to fire Kristi Noem or they would launch impeachment proceedings against the homeland security secretary, in response to the weekend killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, as two Republican senators join calls for her to resign.

The ultimatum from Democrats came after a majority of the House caucus signed on to articles of impeachment introduced earlier in the month in response to the shooting death of Renee Good, who, like Pretti, was a US citizen killed by federal agents during the increasingly violent immigration enforcement operation in Minnesota’s largest city.

“The violence unleashed on the American people by the Department of Homeland Security must end forthwith. Kristi Noem should be fired immediately, or we will commence impeachment proceedings in the House of Representatives,” said Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, and his two deputies, Katherine Clark and Pete Aguilar, in a joint statement.

The guys got the perfect fall-girl to rap.

Thump, thump, that was the sound of the Republican clown car running over Kristi.

This Is Vindictiveness!

This is pure and simple meanness! I don't know how to otherwise describe it!

This gay couple escaped Iran, fearing for their lives. The administration is sending them back.

“There is a very, very real — not speculative — concern,” the couple’s lawyer says.

LGBTQ Nation

John Russell (He/Him)

January 26, 2026,

A pair of gay asylum seekers is fighting to stay in the U.S., even as the presidential administration has ordered their deportation to Iran, where they could face the death penalty for a previous conviction for homosexual activity.

The men’s attorney, Rebekah Wolf of the American Immigration Council, noted in an interview with AZ Mirror that homosexuality is punishable by death in Iran.

This shows how deep the Trump adminstration hatred of us goes.

Wolf described the couple’s cases as “textbook” asylum claims: “People from a country where who they are is criminalized and punishable by torture or death — that is literally the definition of an asylum seeker,” she told Advocate.

But the men have remained in detention since entering the U.S. Wolf explained that they did not have legal representation at their hearings in late April and early May, which she described as “fraught with bias” and violations of due process. Their claims were denied, and while Wolf has worked to appeal the decisions, the couple has been scheduled for deportation to Iran three times, though they have not yet been removed from the U.S.

But the Trump adminstration slammed the door on them! And sentenced them to death!

Reason wrote,

President Donald Trump has threatened war with Iran if the government harms its own people. But he's also planning to hand over Iranians, some of whom may face the death penalty, to that government. On Thursday, the nonprofit National Iranian American Council warned that it had learned about a planned deportation flight to Iran. On Friday, a lawyer for two gay Iranians set to be deported confirmed the story to MS NOW and CNN.

"The same administration that promised Iranians that 'help is on the way' amid a deadly crackdown is now forcibly sending Iranians back into danger," National Iranian American Council President Jamal Abdi said in a press release. "Words of solidarity against violence and repression ring especially hollow when you're rounding those same people up and forcing them on planes to deliver them back into the hands of their oppressors."

But nothing stops the hate the Trump adminstration has shown against not olny the trans community but also anything LGBTQ+!

In Iran they still do "honor" killings to defend the family name, in 2021...

Alireza Fazeli Monfared wanted to live as a free gay man in the West. His family in Iran beheaded him days before his dream came true, say activists.

Business Insider

By Joshua Nelken-Zitser 

• Alireza Fazeli Monfared, a 20-year-old gay Iranian man, was killed in an alleged "honor killing."
• Insider obtained voice notes indicating he was days away from fleeing Iran because of persecution.
• Activists are among those seeking to draw attention to his killing.

[...]

But five days before he was due to leave Iran, his half-brother discovered paperwork for his military exemption detailing his sexuality. 6Rang's executive director, Shadi Amin, said that triggered some relatives to take Monfared to a remote village and end his life.

The 20-year-old's murder has sparked a global outcry, including social-media posts by the likes of Demi Lovato. But Iranian human-rights activists have said it is emblematic of a daily persecution that gay people in Iran face.

This is what faces if they are returned to Iran!

Mini-Post: I think We All Know This

That embassies are foreign territories and not subject to US law.  But I guess the numskulls at ICE don't know that.

Ecuador says ICE agent tried to enter consulate in Minneapolis

Reuters

By Brad Brooks and Alexandra Valencia

January 28, 2026

Summary

• Ecuador lodges protest with US Embassy in Quito
• Foreign Ministry says consulate staff kept ICE agent out
• Incident occurs as tensions simmer over deportation drive

 A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent tried to get into Ecuador's consulate in Minneapolis on Tuesday but was prevented from entering the premises by consulate staffers, the country's Foreign Ministry said.

The attempted entry prompted the Foreign Ministry to send a "note of protest" to the U.S. Embassy in Quito, the Ecuadorean capital, demanding such incidents "not be repeated," the ministry said in a statement.

[...]

"I saw the officers going after two people in the street, and then those people went into the consulate and the officers tried to go in after them," said one woman, who asked not to be named, citing a fear of retribution by the federal government.

The agents "weren’t able to enter the consulate, from what I could see," she said.

Under an international treaty, a country's embassies, consular offices and other diplomatic compounds are regarded as sovereign territory of that nation, protected under diplomatic immunity from unauthorized entry by agents of other governments.

But as we all know the Trump administrations is not too keen on followings laws.

Could Another Crack Be Forming?

One of the bases that Trump counts on is showing fractures and the question is, how do we break his other leg...

This morning I wrote about how Trump is fracturing his Second Amendment base, now I want to write about his other base, the religious right!

President Trump: “I think God is very proud of the job I’ve done.”

The Daily Citizen

by Paul Batura

January 21, 2026

At Tuesday’s White House briefing marking the one-year anniversary of the second Trump administration, a reporter asked President Trump the following question:

“Last year, you told me that you believed that the reason you won the election is because God put you in this place so that you could save the world. Looking back [after] one year, do you feel like God is proud of the effort that you’ve [given]?”

To be clear, it was during President Trump’s second Inaugural address that he stated, “Just a few months ago, in a beautiful Pennsylvania field, an assassin’s bullet ripped through my ear. But I felt then and we believe even more so now that my life was saved for a reason. I was saved by God to make America great again.”

President Trump didn’t quibble with the reporter’s premise, but did answer with a bit of a chuckle.

“I do actually,” he said. “I think God is very proud of the job I’ve done.” He then added, “We’re protecting a lot of people that are being killed. Christians, Jewish people, and lots of people are being protected by me that wouldn’t be protected …”

They are appeasing the Christian right with prayer services in the White House and the Pentagon. The Secretary of Defense Hegseth has said he is explicitly prioritizing leaders who reject "progressive" values in favor of what he calls "Biblical" and "traditional" standards. He has been vocal about wanting a military guided by Christian faith.

Trump and Vance gush over extremist at Christian nationalist conference

Activist David Lane has called for Christians to wield complete control over society and supported the idea of rioting over legal abortion.

MS Now

Sep. 11, 2025

By Ja'han Jones

President Donald Trump and his vice president, JD Vance, issued videotaped remarks to attendees at a conference hosted by an avowed Christian nationalist this week.

Trump — who has previously dismissed concerns about the separation of church and state when he announced his “religious liberty commission” and claimed the country would be better if right-wing Christians had more power — declared his support for far-right political operative David Lane via a prerecorded, 90-second address to Lane’s Nehemiah Project Pastors Summit in North Carolina this week. The endorsement shows the president’s alignment with a figure who has advocated for “war for the Soul of America.”

Lane has a history of encouraging right-wing religious figures to run for office as Republicans to put their Christian worldview into political practice. As Right Wing Watch noted, Trump and Vance’s speeches praised those efforts, with Trump crediting Lane for inspiring “dozens of faith leaders to run for office and to win elections” and saying he was “cheering on” Lane’s plan to “recruit 500 church members to run for office in 2026 and 2028.” Vance also praised Lane’s plan and claimed the activist is helping “pastors and congregations re-enter the public square and fight for our nation, helping them to register, to vote, to run for office, and to stand up for biblical truth.”

To be clear, there isn’t anything wrong with churchgoing people — even pastors — running for office, so long as they don’t try to impose their religion on others. But that’s precisely what Lane has encouraged them to do. Right Wing Watch has a list of some of Lane’s positions, many of these dating to around a decade ago:

He once urged conservative Christians to prepare for martyrdom in their fight to ‘save the nation from the pagan onslaught’ of marriage equality and legal abortion. He preaches that the U.S. has a divine mission to glorify God and advance the Christian faith. He called the separation of church and state a ‘lie’ and a ‘fabricated whopper’ designed to stop ‘Christian America—the moral majority—from imposing moral government on pagan public schools, pagan higher learning and pagan media.’ He argued that Christianity must ‘eradicate’ secularism. He once complained that there was ‘not a peep from the Christian Church’ in response to the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, when the church ‘should have initiated riots, revolution, and repentance.’

But the base is getting finicky between what is happening in Minneapolis and the Epstein files! The Christian base is a nervous Nelly right now.

It is not a secret that he is supported by the religious right, but that base is very, very shaky!

He Spent Decades Building the Religious Right. Now He’s Marching to Undo It.

“This is redemption.”

Mother Jones

Sam VanPykeren

January 25, 2026

He helped build the religious right in the United States. Now he’s in Minneapolis to join the clergy’s fight against ICE’s siege of the city.

He helped build the religious right in the United States. Now he’s in Minneapolis to join the clergy’s fight against ICE’s siege of the city.

“Being here, in solidarity, is part of the repair work in my own soul,” said the Reverend Rob Schenck, an Evangelical minister who spent decades commingling church and state to advance conservative causes like the anti-abortion movement. One example: Schenck’s organization, Faith and Action in the Nation’s Capital, created “Operation Higher Court,” which trained wealthy couples as “stealth missionaries” to befriend Supreme Court justices to preserve, in his words, a Christian nation.

Now, he says he must confront the damage he helped cause, including what he believes was his role in delivering “the entities that are now inflicting all of this suffering on so many people”—extending to the rise of President Donald Trump. “We made this terrible deal with Donald Trump because we were already demoralized,” he told Mother Jones in 2018. “He didn’t demoralize us—he is the evidence of our demoralization.”

Is Minneapolis causing a riff in the Christian right?

Christianity Today writes,

You can say all that and still say this: What the federal government is doing in Minnesota is intolerable. It is chaotic, reckless, and overbearing. It is a misuse of authority, an incompetent and authoritarian means even insofar as it pursues a democratically invited end.

The Trump administration should be able to enforce immigration law without tear-gassing infants, arresting peaceful clergy, smashing the windows of open cars, and pepper-spraying protesters in the face from four inches away. It should be able to do it without using cheap AI edits to callously lie about Americans. It should be able to do it without making a sick joke—and I do hope it was a joke—about putting citizens in databases for the mere expression of dissent.

His base hasn't fractured but it is quibbling! They don't like what they are seeing!

That Cracking Sound!

Have you ever been on a frozen lake? You can hear the cracks spread. It’s an eerie sound.

Well, you can hear the cracks forming in the Trump administration. I wrote yesterday about Trump making a strategic error, and the fallout is continuing.

Minnesota killing produces backlash against Trump administration from Second Amendment advocates

AP News

By  BILL BARROW and NICHOLAS RICCARDI

January 27, 2026

Prominent Republicans and gun rights advocates helped elicit a White House turnabout this week after bristling over the administration’s characterization of Alex Pretti, the second person killed this month by a federal officer in Minneapolis, as responsible for his own death because he lawfully possessed a weapon.

The death produced no clear shifts in U.S. gun politics or policies, even as President Donald Trump shuffles the lieutenants in charge of his militarized immigration crackdown. But important voices in Trump’s coalition have called for a thorough investigation of Pretti’s death while also criticizing inconsistencies in some Republicans’ Second Amendment stances.

If the dynamic persists, it could give Republicans problems as Trump heads into a midterm election year with voters already growing skeptical of his overall immigration approach. The concern is acute enough that Trump’s top spokeswoman sought Monday to reassert his brand as a staunch gun rights supporter.

That was a huge tactical mistake, and changing the head guy will not appease the gun crowd. I don’t know about you, but I heard a collective gasp when I heard Trump & Company say you shouldn’t bring a gun to a protest!

Gun rights groups blast Trump over Minnesota response

Gun ownership advocates are pushing back against the Trump administration over its response to the killing of Alex Pretti on Saturday.

Politico

By Andrew Howard

01/27/2026

The killing of Alex Pretti by federal immigration agents in Minnesota has led to a rare rebuke of top Trump administration officials by leading 2nd Amendment advocates.

Multiple national gun-rights organizations, as well as a prominent Minnesota gun rights group, have expressed horror at top Trump administration officials’ criticism of Pretti for being armed with a handgun that he had a legal permit to carry.

“The FBI director needs to brush off that thing called the Constitution, because he clearly hasn’t read it,” National Association for Gun Rights President Dudley Brown told POLITICO. “I know of no more crucial place to carry a firearm for self defense than a protest.”

As Jim Croce sang there are certain thing you do not do!

You don't tug on Superman's cape

You don't spit into the wind

You don't pull the mask off that old lone ranger

And you don't mess around with the 2^nd Amendment!

Do you remember when Republicans used to threaten their base with “The Democrats want to take away your Second Amendment rights!!!”? Well, it is the Republicans who did it.

Gun-rights groups rushed to push back on an administration that was breaking with conservative orthodoxy on the right to bear arms in public places.

Several were particularly outraged by Bill Essayli, the acting U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, who posted on X: “If you approach law enforcement with a gun, there is a high likelihood they will be legally justified in shooting you.”

The National Rifle Association, a longtime ally of President Donald Trump, posted that Essayli’s remarks were “dangerous and wrong,” and called for a full investigation rather than “making generalizations and demonizing law-abiding citizens.”

Well the Republicans tug on Superman's cape!

---

The fallout...

Republicans divided on ICE tactics as shutdown looms

The Hill

by Alexander Bolton

01/26/26 

Senate Republicans are divided over Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) tactics, which now threaten to trigger a partial government shutdown after the second fatal shooting in Minneapolis of a protester.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) called the shooting and other events in Minneapolis “incredibly disturbing” and demanded a “full joint federal and state investigation” of the incident, something senior Trump administration officials have so far resisted.

“The events in Minneapolis are incredibly disturbing. The credibility of ICE and DHS are at stake. There must be a full joint federal and state investigation. We can trust the American people with the truth,” he wrote Saturday in a social media post.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said Sunday the shooting raises “serious questions within the administration about the adequacy of immigration-enforcement training and the instructions officers are given on carrying out their mission.”

Can you imagine being a Republican congressperson right now? On one hand, you’re quaking in your boots, fearing Trump, and now you have all these gun nuts screaming, “They’re taking away my guns!”

 The New York Times wrote;

“You’re not addressing the problem by throwing a 500-pound gorilla into these inner cities,” said Mr. Hagelsieb, 52, who said he voted three times for President Trump and retired from the Department of Homeland Security in 2023. “It’s completely unfair to the agents who have been put in this position.”

“They’re causing chaos, and unfortunately it’s costing lives,” he added. “There’s only so much they can handle before bad things start to happen.”

And remember this is Trump's base talking! And it is fracturing!

Trump sat on a wall

Trump had a great fall

All the Trump's horses and all the Trump's men 

Couldn't put Trump together again!

The AP News article ends with;

William Sack, legal director of the Second Amendment Foundation, said he was surprised and disappointed by the administration’s initial statements following the Pretti shooting. Trump’s vacillating, he said, is “very likely to cost them dearly with the core of a constituency they count on.”

How Do I Rip Thee Off? Let Me Count The Ways.

#1 Conflicts of Interest / “Pay‑to‑Play” Concerns.

You want to be on Trump’s Board of Peace? That’ll cost you one billion dollars! And that money will go to… oh! Imagine that — Trump hasn’t said where it will go. Into an account managed by Trump? Like the oil money from Venezuela?

Trump’s ‘pay-to-play’ politics fuel a ‘new gilded age’, experts say

Major donors reap influence and material benefits, ethics experts argue, as money and governance intertwine

The Guardian

Peter Stone

Fri 23 Jan 2026 

Donald Trump’s “pay-to-play” governing and fundraising style is helping forge a new gilded age where many super rich donors to Trump’s Maga Inc Pac and other top Trump causes are reaping big political and financial gains, including lax regulations, federal contracts and other benefits, say scholars and analysts.

The transactional style of the US president has been a financial boon to cryptocurrency, AI and fossil fuel interests, among others, which have showered seven- and eight-figure donations on Trump’s Super Pac, inaugural committee and pet projects such as his oft-touted mammoth White House ballroom.

According to public filings and Trump’s statements, the president’s Super Pac hauled in a stunning $300m in 2025, which analysts expect will mainly be spent on the 2026 midterm elections to help the GOP keep control of Congress, and Trump’s lavish ballroom project has raised $350m.

Cha Ching!

Over the past year, Trump’s herculean fundraising with its “pay-to-play” approach has reached “unprecedented” levels, say experts and scholars.

“Trump’s unprecedented fundraising for his Maga Pac and his White House ballroom vanity project from wealthy donors and corporate interests who stand to benefit from his administration’s decisions are among the most recent examples of how he views governance as a pay-to-play business,” said Larry Noble, a former general counsel at the Federal Election Commission who now teaches law at American University.

We’d have to talk to former members — because Trump fired them all and put in his cronies!

2. Pardons & White‑Collar Crime

Trump Flouts Pardon Rules — and Costs Victims and Taxpayers More Than $1 Billion

Many of the president’s recent pardons violate Justice Department policies designed to ensure fairness and public safety.

The Marshall Project

By Joseph Neff

July 28, 2025

Their cases were different. One faced a four-year prison sentence in a $675 million fraud case for marketing an electric truck that wasn’t drivable. Another tried to overthrow the government. A tax cheat avoided prison and $4.4 million in restitution after his mom donated $1 million to the president.Their cases have two things in common. President Donald Trump pardoned them all in the early months of his second administration. And those pardons violated long-standing Department of Justice policies that reward people who show remorse, pay restitution and can contribute to society. Since returning to the White House, Trump has pardoned more than 1,600 people and at least two corporations in his first six months in office. Many of those pardons have violated standards designed to ensure fairness and to protect the public, attorneys and legal experts say.The changes began immediately. Hours after taking the oath of office, Trump pardoned more than 1,500 rioters who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. That included men who used bear spray, bats, batons and poles to assault police officers.

[...]

In March, actor Mel Gibson, a friend of Trump, sought to have his criminal record cleaned up so he could own a gun again. Oyer declined to recommend a pardon due to Gibson’s history of violence against women. She was fired several hours later, with no reason given. She is suing to get her job back.

Cha Ching!

Trump’s pardons have proved costly for taxpayers and crime victims. Besides the group pardons of Jan. 6 defendants and anti-abortion protestors, the president has pardoned 46 individuals. Of those, more than half have been freed of fines and restitution.Oyer, the former pardon attorney, has set up a “pardon tracker” on her website that tallies the price of Trump’s pardons of people and companies that owed restitution and fines. As of July 23, the cost to taxpayers and crime victims is more than $1.3 billion.

Money talks — nobody walks!

Trump got very good at saying “You’re fired!” on The Apprentice.

3. Ethics Oversight / Watchdog Removal

Trump fired independent inspectors general, and the removal of ethics watchdog leadership undermined nonpartisan oversight critical to exposing fraud, waste, and abuse.

Trump Administration’s Undercutting of Oversight Hurts Taxpayers and Beneficiaries

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

November 6, 2025

By Cristin Dorgelo, Kathleen Romig, Nia Law, and Devin O'Connor

Since the start of President Trump’s second term in January, the Trump Administration has consistently sought to evade accountability. It has engaged in a series of unprecedented, irresponsible, and often illegal steps — reversing long-standing bipartisan commitments to integrity and transparency through actions that will increase the risk of fraud and make it more difficult to impartially determine when the Administration is taking illegal or imprudent action. This hostility to oversight has been on display as the President has removed Inspectors General (IG) and the Administration has defunded operations supporting IGs’ work, undercutting independent agency oversight.

Last month, the President removed a Senate-confirmed Inspector General, in flagrant violation of legal removal procedures, for the 17th time this year.[3] Since firing many of these IGs in January, President Trump has kept most of these positions vacant for over eight months. (See Figure 1.) The President has continued active interference in IG offices, reportedly removing the U.S. Federal Housing Finance Agency's acting Inspector General early this week in retaliation for seeking to provide information to Congress and federal prosecutors consistent with the statutory responsibilities and duties of the office.

And at the start of October, the Administration defunded the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE), which supports the operations of more than 70 IGs across the federal government. This defunding brought down CIGIE’s website, which is a repository for tens of thousands of reports with IG findings on waste and fraud, as well as more than two dozen other IG websites run by CIGIE that provided whistleblower resources.

With no one watching the chicken coop the foxes have free run!

Firings, pardons and policy changes have gutted DOJ anti-corruption efforts, experts say

CNBC NEWS

Dilanian

June 3 2025

For decades, the FBI and the Justice Department have been the main enforcers of laws against political corruption and white-collar fraud in the United States. In four months, the Trump administration has dismantled key parts of that law enforcement infrastructure, creating what experts say is the ripest environment for corruption by public officials and business executives in a generation.

Trump aides have forced out most of the lawyers in the Justice Department’s main anti-corruption unit, the Public Integrity Section, and disbanded an FBI squad tasked with investigating congressional misconduct. They have issued a series of directives requiring federal law enforcement agencies to prioritize immigration enforcement. And they have ended a 50-year policy of keeping the Justice Department independent of the White House in criminal investigations. 

All of that came after Trump fired most of the inspectors general — the independent agency watchdogs responsible for fighting corruption and waste — and the Justice Department dropped a corruption case against the mayor of New York in what a judge said was a “breathtaking” political bargain. And it came after the Trump administration Justice Department pulled back on enforcement of foreign bribery and lobbying statutes, as well as cryptocurrency investigations.

[...]

Finally, one of the most impactful moves the Trump administration has made was to slash the size of the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, which has dropped from roughly 35 lawyers to four to five, according to two former members of the unit. Lawyers who work in the Public Integrity Section consult with U.S. attorneys around the country on official corruption matters. Their role is twofold — to assist in cases when needed or when U.S. attorney’s offices’ prosecutors faced conflicts of interest and to ensure politically appointed U.S. attorneys followed the rules in some of the most politically sensitive cases the government brings.

4. Business Ties & Foreign Influence

‘Roadmap for corruption’: Trump dive into cryptocurrency raises ethics alarm

The president’s hawking of $Trump memecoin has sparked a firestorm of criticism over potential influence buying

The Guardian

Peter Stone

Sun 25 May 2025

Donald Trump’s push to sharply ease oversight of the cryptocurrency industry, while he and his sons have fast expanded crypto ventures that have reaped billions of dollars from investors including foreign ones, is raising alarm about ethical and legal issues.

Watchdog groups, congressional Democrats and some Republicans have levelled a firestorm of criticism at Trump for hawking his own meme coin, $Trump, a novelty crypto token with no inherent value, by personally hosting a 22 May dinner at his Virginia golf club for the 220 largest buyers of $Trump and a private “reception” for the 25 biggest buyers.

To attend the two events, the $Trump buyers spent about $148m, which will benefit Trump and partners, according to the crypto firm Inca Digital.

Further, the Trump family crypto venture World Liberty Financial that launched last fall, which his two oldest sons have promoted hard, was tapped this month to play a key part in a $2bn investment deal by an Abu Dhabi financial fund in the crypto exchange Binance, which in 2023 pleaded guilty to US money laundering and other violations.

But wait — there’s more!

Trump’s term 2 corruption by the numbers: More golf trips, more foreign visitors and more profits

CREW

By Rebecca Jacobs

July 21, 2025

In the first six months of Trump’s second term, his corruption is worse, marked by a dramatic escalation of his presidential profiteering.

• This term, Trump has made 99 visits to his properties, including 62 visits to his golf courses, a 37% increase from last term.
• Foreign government officials from ten countries have made 19 visits to Trump properties this term, with state government officials visiting 17 times in the last six months.
• Special interest groups, political committees and foreign governments have held 49 events at Trump properties, 16 more than this time in Trump’s first term.
•  In the first six months of this administration, Trump has promoted his properties by mentioning them 57 times, a 78% increase from the first six months of his first term

During his first term in office, President Donald Trump racked up thousands of conflicts of interest, stemming from his decision not to divest from his real estate empire. Through visits and promotion of his properties and handouts for his customers, Trump sent a message that access to his administration was for sale through his businesses. In the first six months of Trump’s second term, his corruption is worse, marked by a dramatic escalation of his presidential profiteering. Trump not only once again failed to divest from the businesses he owns and profits from, he has launched numerous new businesses to monetize the presidency on a scale orders of magnitude greater than the corruption of his first administration.

Trump’s business empire has grown considerably since the end of his first term, offering more lucrative and secretive ways to buy access and seek influence. Over the past few years, he has expanded his portfolio to include a publicly traded social media company, cryptocurrency ventures, new international developments and, most recently, a wireless service provider. 

The Trump Organization’s core real estate properties remain open for business to those looking to ingratiate themselves with the president. Since day one of this administration, CREW has tracked the conflicts of interest stemming from Trump’s real estate empire. CREW’s tracking falls into three main categories: 

• Visits to Trump properties from foreign dignitaries, state government officials, cabinet members and Trump himself
• Events that special interest groups, foreign governments and political committees hold at Trump properties
• Instances in which Trump, members of his cabinet and government websites mention Trump business interests 

Trump is putting to shame the Tea pot Dome and Tammany Hall scandals!

Breaking News!!! Another Protester Shot!

Early reports is that she was shot in the hand with non-lethal pepper ball gun while holding a phone recording the conformation!

So far only a video on Facebook shows the shooting.

There are reports that ICE has been targeting cellphones and new reporters.

Crack!

That sound you heard was the crack in MAGA and Trump’s base — split right down the middle. And it all comes from Trump’s team doing a song-and-dance to talk their way out of a killing by an ICE agent.

When Trump’s cronies said, “Who brings a gun to a protest without using it?” — CRACK!

NRA, local gun rights advocates reject Trump officials blaming Alex Pretti for being armed

Pretti was licensed to carry a gun in public when he was fatally shot by an immigration agent.

By Paul Walsh

The Minnesota Star Tribune

January 25, 2026

Gun rights advocates in Minnesota and the nation are pushing back on the contention from Trump administration officials that federal agents killing Alex Pretti on Saturday, Jan. 24, was justified because, among other factors, he had a gun and ammunition with him.

Border Patrol Cmndr. Greg Bovino told CNN one day after the shooting, “We respect that Second Amendment right, but those rights don’t count when you riot and assault, delay, obstruct and impede law enforcement officers and, most especially, when you mean to do that beforehand.”

Disagreeing was Rob Doar, senior vice president of the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus and a gun rights advocate. Doar said he has seen at least four videos taken by bystanders of Pretti’s death during an immigration enforcement action on Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis. He gave the Minnesota Star Tribune a moment-by-moment account of what he saw, contradicting Bovino’s assessment.

Then another Trump stooge said this:

Doar’s organization learned of FBI Director Kash Patel’s comment on Jan. 25 on Fox News that “you cannot bring a firearm, loaded, with multiple magazines to any sort of protest that you want. It’s that simple. You don’t have a right to break the law.”

Doar’s group countered on X, formerly Twitter: “That is completely incorrect. There is no prohibition on a permit holder carrying a firearm, loaded, with multiple magazines at a protest or rally in Minnesota.”

That cracking sound? That’s the split developing inside Trump’s loyal, gun-loving base. And the administration didn’t back off — they doubled down.

Trump administration goes after Second Amendment rights in justifying Minneapolis shooting

A number of pro-gun rights Republicans pushed back on the administration's argument that Alex Pretti was dangerous because he had a gun. Pretti was legally licensed to carry one.

NBC News

By Jonathan Allen

January 25, 2026

A war of words over deeply held beliefs erupted on the political right in the hours after a federal agent shot and killed Alex Pretti on a Minneapolis street Saturday, pitting top officials in President Donald Trump’s administration against Second Amendment defenders in his electoral base.

At the core of the debate is that Pretti — who was permitted to carry a gun in public in Minnesota — had a concealed firearm on his person that eyewitness videos show federal agents apparently discovering and removing during the altercation that led to his death. Videos do not appear to show Pretti holding the weapon during that confrontation.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem sought to justify the killing by asserting at a news conference that Pretti “attacked those officers, had a weapon on him, and multiple dozens of rounds of ammunition, wishing to inflict harm on these officers coming, brandishing like that and impeding their work that they were doing.” No evidence has been provided to back up this account.

Noem argued that his possession of a firearm demonstrated that he did not intend to remain peaceful.

“I don’t know of any peaceful protester that shows up with a gun and ammunition rather than a sign,” Noem said on Saturday.

Boy was that the wrong track to take with the gun loving Republicans!

Republican calls are growing for a deeper investigation into the fatal Minneapolis shooting, do you remember in 2000 when Charlton Heston said that you are only taking my rifle "From my cold, dead hands.” Well Trump & Company want to do just that... take the guns form the from the cold, dead hands of the protesters.

Republican calls are growing for a deeper investigation into the fatal Minneapolis shooting

AP News

By  STEVEN SLOAN

January 25, 2026

A growing number of Republicans are pressing for a deeper investigation into federal immigration tactics in Minnesota after a U.S. Border Patrol agent fatally shot a man in Minneapolis, a sign that the Trump administration’s accounting of events may face bipartisan scrutiny.

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Andrew Garbarino sought testimony from leaders at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, saying “my top priority remains keeping Americans safe.”

A host of other congressional Republicans, including Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas and Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, pressed for more information. Their statements, in addition to concern expressed from several Republican governors, reflected a party struggling with how to respond to Saturday’s fatal shooting of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse at a VA hospital.

But Trump cronies doubled down,

Deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller issued social media posts referencing an “assassin” and “domestic terrorist” while Noem said Pretti showed up to “impede a law enforcement operation.”

The Minnesota Star Tribune went on to say,

Also weighing in on comments after Pretti’s killing was the National Rifle Association (NRA), for decades a powerhouse advocate for the near limitless constitutional right to bear arms.

The NRA spoke up after an assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, Bill Essayli, posted on X:

“If you approach law enforcement with a gun, there is a high likelihood they will be legally justified in shooting you. Don’t do it!”

The NRA called Essayli’s comment “dangerous and wrong. ... Responsible public voices should be awaiting a full investigation, not making generalizations and demonizing law-abiding citizens.”

AOL wrote,

Reaction from gun rights advocates: Those assertions from administration officials drew rebukes from gun rights advocates who typically find common cause with the GOP. "The Second Amendment protects Americans' right to bear arms while protesting—a right the federal government must not infringe upon," the Gun Owners of America posted on X. Rep. Thomas Massie, a Republican who respresents Kentucky's 4th congressional district, wrote on X, "Carrying a firearm is not a death sentence, it's a Constitutionally protected God-given right, and if you don't understand this you have no business in law enforcement or government."

And remember: in the cold northern woods of Minnesota, trees don’t crack from the cold — they explode.