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In Trump’s ‘dual state,’ dissenters face extrajudicial executions, while loyalists enjoy protections

In Trump’s ‘dual state,’ dissenters face extrajudicial executions, while loyalists enjoy protections

Kyle Varner writes: The concept of the Dual State, first articulated by the jurist Ernst Fraenkel, one of the few Jews in Germany who was allowed to temporarily practice law during a ban on Jewish lawyers due to his status as a World War I veteran, describes a system where two parallel governmental structures inhabit the same body. On one side is the Normative State—the administrative body that handles the routine, non-political business of a nation through predictable laws and…

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Alex Pretti’s ICE murder is beyond politics. This is about good vs. evil

Alex Pretti’s ICE murder is beyond politics. This is about good vs. evil

Will Bunch writes: In the waning days of the worst January any of us can remember, I desperately wanted to tell a good story about America, and then on Friday, I watched one unfold in frozen Minnesota with an abiding love and white-hot intensity that seemed to melt the subzero air. The sight of as many as 50,000 people packing the downtown streets on a minus-9-degree day to demand that federal immigration raiders leave Minneapolis was a high watermark for…

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Congress can either rein in ICE or be complicit in the violence

Congress can either rein in ICE or be complicit in the violence

Mike Zamore writes: A 5-year-old child detained and sent with his father to a Texas immigration detention facility. Minnesotans shot – and even killed – at the hands of federal agents. U.S. citizens arrested by masked officers in broad daylight. These headlines should be enough to make anyone rethink their support of President Donald Trump’s immigration agencies. The death of 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti on Saturday – caught on camera from multiple angles — must finally shock this country’s…

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Trump-appointed federal judge blocks DHS-FBI cover-up in VA nurse killing

Trump-appointed federal judge blocks DHS-FBI cover-up in VA nurse killing

The Daily Beast reports: A federal judge granted a temporary restraining order blocking the Trump administration from “destroying or altering evidence” in connection with the fatal shooting of VA nurse Alex Jeffrey Pretti. Judge Eric C. Tostrud, who was nominated to the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota by Donald Trump in 2018, issued his ruling on Saturday evening. The Department of Homeland Security, ICE, Border Patrol, Attorney General’s Office, and the FBI are prohibited from tampering…

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China fires top general in shocking purge of senior military command

China fires top general in shocking purge of senior military command

The Washington Post reports: China’s highest-ranking military official below Xi Jinping has been placed under investigation for corruption, a stunning upheaval that brings down the most senior figure yet in a widening purge of Beijing’s armed forces and signifies an unprecedented consolidation of military power under the country’s leader. China’s Ministry of National Defense said Saturday that Zhang Youxia, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) — the Communist Party body that controls China’s armed forces — is suspected…

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The summary execution of a VA nurse, holding his phone, shot at least ten times by federal agents

The summary execution of a VA nurse, holding his phone, shot at least ten times by federal agents

The Guardian reports: The Minnesota man who was killed by federal agents on Saturday has been identified as Alex Pretti, 37, a registered nurse working in the intensive care unit at the Minneapolis VA Health Care System, which serves veterans. It’s the second fatal shooting this month in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in addition to another non-fatal shooting, amid a major crackdown in Minnesota by federal agents. Pretti attended nursing school at the University of Minnesota, where he was also a junior…

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After her death, DOJ sought to probe Renee Good for criminal liability

After her death, DOJ sought to probe Renee Good for criminal liability

MS Now reports: Aides to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche directed the U.S. Attorney’s office and FBI agents based in Minnesota to shut down a civil rights investigation into an officer’s fatal shooting of Renee Good and instead alter it to probe Good for possible criminal liability, according to three people briefed on the discussions. After Good was killed on Jan. 7, FBI agents drafted a search warrant to obtain her car to reconstruct the path of bullets that an…

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German commentators note that Gregory Bovino dresses like a Nazi officer

German commentators note that Gregory Bovino dresses like a Nazi officer

The Guardian reports: A greatcoat worn by the senior US border patrol official Gregory Bovino, who has spearheaded aggressive immigration operations across the country, has raised eyebrows in German media with some commentators saying it resembled a fascist aesthetic. Bovino has been an increasingly recognisable figure during the raids in Minneapolis for the brass-buttoned, calf-length olive green coat, which is unlike the fatigues and body armor worn by many of the federal agents. Along with his close-shorn haircut, the media…

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Filming ICE is legal but exposes you to digital tracking – here’s how to minimize the risk

Filming ICE is legal but exposes you to digital tracking – here’s how to minimize the risk

If you’re going to record ICE agents, recognize that the risks go beyond physical confrontation. Madison Thorn/Anadolu via Getty Images By Nicole M. Bennett, Indiana University When an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good in south Minneapolis on Jan. 7, 2026, what happened next looked familiar, at least on the surface. Within hours, cellphone footage spread online and eyewitness accounts contradicted official statements, while video analysts slowed the clip down frame by frame to answer…

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AI-powered disinformation swarms are coming for democracy

AI-powered disinformation swarms are coming for democracy

Wired reports: In 2016, hundreds of Russians filed into a modern office building on 55 Savushkina Street in St. Petersburg every day; they were part of the now-infamous troll farm known as the Internet Research Agency. Day and night, seven days a week, these employees would manually comment on news articles, post on Facebook and Twitter, and generally seek to rile up Americans about the then-upcoming presidential election. When the scheme was finally uncovered, there was widespread media coverage and…

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Europe’s relevance in the world will depend on its readiness to live in a world without the Atlantic alliance

Europe’s relevance in the world will depend on its readiness to live in a world without the Atlantic alliance

Ivan Krastev writes: For the Trump Administration, the question is what role NATO has when America no longer views the European Union as an American project but still wants to retain the Old Continent within its sphere of influence. It is a vision where America seeks to replace the Cold War West, which was described as the “free world” and defined by shared liberal values, with a cultural West rooted in Christianity and whiteness. For Europeans, the stakes are different…

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The final indignities inflicted on Iran’s thousands of protest victims

The final indignities inflicted on Iran’s thousands of protest victims

The New York Times reports: The families rooted frantically through the piles of corpses, so crammed together that the living had to take care not to step on the dead. Wailing and cursing, they searched the body bags for the number assigned to their loved one for burial — a surreal veneer of bureaucracy imposed onto a chaotic nightmare. But the breaking point only came when weary-looking cemetery workers arrived in refrigerated trucks to dump still more corpses on the…

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Hundreds of clergy descend on Minneapolis to join the resistance against ICE

Hundreds of clergy descend on Minneapolis to join the resistance against ICE

Religion News Service reports: Around 200 faith leaders fanned out across the city on Thursday (Jan. 22) to observe and document the actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, with some clergy confronting Department of Homeland Security agents, adding a visible religious presence to widespread efforts to counter the president’s mass deportation campaign in the region. The faith leaders, who are in Minneapolis as part of a larger convening focused on religious pushback to ICE, deployed to neighborhoods with significant immigrant…

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100 clergy arrested protesting against ICE at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport

100 clergy arrested protesting against ICE at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport

The Wall Street Journal reports: During demonstrations in Minneapolis on Friday, roughly 100 clergy members were arrested at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Mostly Christian clergy and faith leaders rallied at the airport, where they claimed planes were flying detained migrants out of the state as part of ICE’s “Operation Metro Surge,” according to Justin Lind-Ayres, a Lutheran pastor in Minneapolis. The MSP Airport Police Department confirmed officers made arrests, but didn’t immediately confirm how many. Protesters at the airport, some…

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