MPR News reports: Renee Macklin Good’s wife, Becca Good, said that the 37-year-old poet and mother of three was made of sunshine. “She literally sparkled,” Becca Good said in a statement. “I mean, she didn’t wear glitter but I swear she had sparkles coming out of her pores. All the time.” But behind that light was a well of deep values that Macklin Good lived by, including a conviction that every person — regardless of “where you come from or…
The transformation of ICE into a type of national police force, backed, in some cases, by soldiers from the National Guard, has been covered as immigration story—but these forces are reshaping democracy for all of us. This shift was evident even before the shootings in Minneapolis and Portland this week.
G. Elliott Morris writes: On Wednesday morning, Jan. 7, an agent of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement shot and killed a 37-year-old mother, Renee Nicole Good, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Video footage of the incident went viral and prompted mass protests around the country on Wednesday and Thursday night, from San Diego to Houston to Philadelphia. The Minnesota Timberwolves, a basketball team, held a moment of silence for Good during Thursday3night’s game. Over the past year, protests against ICE have become…
The New York Times reports: The European Union, overcoming deep dissension among its members, gave the green light to a sweeping trade pact with four South American countries on Friday that would create one of the largest free-trade zones in the world, connecting markets with more than 700 million people. The agreement offers a stark contrast to the amped-up aggression on display this week from the Trump administration. As Europe worked to extend an era of economic collaboration, the United…
Borzou Daragahi writes: I and others have written Iranian protests lacking organization and leadership mostly fail to amount to significant political shifts. But Iran’s waves of street actions can nevertheless push change. The 2009 uprising likely convinced Khamenei to stop fiddling brazenly with election results. The “woman, life, freedom” marches ushered unmistakable cultural changes and the abandonment of the enforcement of dress codes on women. But except for those in 2009, Iran’s protests have not offered any possible roadmap to…
Adam Serwer writes: There’s a lot we don’t know about the shooting of Renee Nicole Good, who was killed yesterday by federal immigration agents deployed to Minnesota. But in the chaotic aftermath of the shooting, one thing became immediately clear: The Trump administration was lying about what happened. Shortly after news began circulating about the shooting, the Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement on X that “rioters began blocking ICE officers and one of these…
NYT: An analysis of footage from three camera angles shows that the motorist was driving away from — not toward — a federal officer when he opened fire. The Washington Post reports: Thousands of people in Minneapolis gathered for a candlelight vigil Wednesday evening to mourn and protest the killing of Renee Nicole Good, who was shot and killed by an ICE officer in the city hours earlier as she appeared to try to drive away in her vehicle…
Jan-Werner Müller writes: When a bleary-eyed Trump explained the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro this past Saturday, he invoked the Monroe doctrine: while the US president sounded like he was reading about it for the first time, historians of course recognized the idea of Washington as a kind of guardian of the western hemisphere. Together with the national security strategy published in December, the move on Venezuela can be understood as advancing a vision for carving up the world into what…
The Wall Street Journal reports: President Trump and his advisers are planning a sweeping initiative to dominate the Venezuelan oil industry for years to come, and the president has told aides he believes his efforts could help lower oil prices to his favored level of $50 a barrel, according to people familiar with the matter. A plan under consideration envisions the U.S. exerting some control over Venezuela’s state-run oil company Petróleos de Venezuela SA, or PdVSA, including acquiring and marketing…
The Associated Press reports: In 2017, as political outsider Donald Trump headed to Washington, Delcy Rodríguez spotted an opening. Then Venezuela’s foreign minister, Rodríguez directed Citgo — a subsidiary of the state oil company — to make a $500,000 donation to the president’s inauguration. With the socialist administration of Nicolas Maduro struggling to feed Venezuela, Rodríguez gambled on a deal that would have opened the door to American investment. Around the same time, she saw that Trump’s ex-campaign manager was…
Politico reports: Federal judges are increasingly exasperated by the Trump administration’s effort to lock up nearly everyone facing deportation proceedings — a draconian expansion of decades-old policies that hundreds of courts have rejected as illegal or unconstitutional. More than 300 federal judges, including appointees of every president since Ronald Reagan, have now rebuffed the administration’s six-month-old effort to expand its so-called “mandatory detention” policy, according to a POLITICO analysis of court dockets from across the country. Those judges have ordered…
The murder of Renee Nicole Good: Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz: Jennifer Brooks writes: Renee Nicole Good. George Floyd. Different tragedies, but the same grief for a community betrayed by the people who were supposed to protect and serve. Crowds gathered again in Minneapolis on Wednesday, Jan. 7, marching through the same streets where some of them were protesting five and a half years ago after Floyd’s murder. The full force and fury of…
The Atlantic reports: Stephen Miller runs his daily 10 a.m. conference calls—yes, even on Saturdays—less like a government adviser and more like a wartime general. His is the dominant voice, as he plays the role of browbeater, inquisitor, and bully. He accepts no excuses, entertains no dissent. Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy ruthlessly pursues the president’s vision, especially when it comes to pushing immigrants out of the country, and he runs a tight, efficient meeting. Consensus is…
Steve Hendrix writes: For the past year, European friends-turned-frenemies of the United States have delicately navigated one shock after another, hoping for the best as President Donald Trump threatened to lay waste to the global order. When Trump scolded NATO allies, lambasted Ukraine’s president, laid on tariffs and framed ratified treaties as conditional deals, the go-to play by European leaders was to placate — with military spending pledges, trade concessions, disciplined summits, in language scrubbed of morality or judgment. It…
Dean Baker writes: It’s clear to all but the determinedly ignorant that Europe and the United States under Donald Trump are no longer allies. Trump is prepared to go to war to extend his racist vision of the world. Trump is not using euphemisms or code words; he wants white power and as long as European countries are open to immigrants from Asia, Africa, and Latin America, they will be on his enemies list. The prospect of a hostile United…
The Associated Press reports: Russian officials indicated in 2019 that the Kremlin would be willing to back off from its support for Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela in exchange for a free hand in Ukraine, according to Fiona Hill, an adviser to President Donald Trump at the time. The Russians repeatedly floated the idea of a “very strange swap arrangement between Venezuela and Ukraine,” Hill said during a congressional hearing in 2019. Her comments surfaced again this week and were shared…