Fridays with Nicole Sandler

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  1. dopefish says:

    Slightly off-topic, but I’ve been watching Jack Smith’s testimony and I think my favorite exchange was with Rep. Ben Cline, R-Va. Cline was caught off-guard by one of Smith’s answers and really stumbled over his next question.

  3. Savage Librarian says:

    Kevin Hassett (a contender Trump had been considering to replace Fed Chair, Jerome Powell) made an alarming comment recently about “the New World Order.”

    For me it brought to mind what Zarina Zabrisky said about how Putin created his mafia state. Although the recording below is more than 7 years old, it gives valuable insight into what happened in Russia. And because Putin is Trump’s tutor, it also is a valuable lesson in what we now can see is happening in the US.

    For example, ideology does not exist. It is solely a propaganda tool used to consolidate power for the elite. It creates an illusion so the elite can stay in power by stealing from the people.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOi9e7VO6l4

    “Putin’s World Disorder: Byline Festival 2018”

  4. xyxyxyxy says:

    In storm related news,
    I don’t understand why FEMA is NOW necessary and what were the administration’s plans if all the personnel had been fired?
    “FEMA has abruptly halted ongoing terminations of hundreds of disaster workers as the agency prepares for an enormous winter storm”, https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/23/politics/fema-halts-terminations-winter-storm.
    “Thank you for calling FEMA. You are number five hundred twelve thousand in line. Dial 1 if you would like a callback, otherwise remain on the line. Someone will be with you shortly.”

    and “DHS officials … asked FEMA to use the term “freezing rain” instead of [ICE] in public messaging and social media posts about the upcoming winter weather event.”
    https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/another-incredibly-idiotic-story-jake-010016430.html

    • Ginevra diBenci says:

      I suspect that, to the extent it still exists, FEMA is being preserved because *this* storm is projected to hit red states. It’s one things to enrage a bunch of libtards in Minnesota; I suspect Trump fears alienating his remaining base in Georgia, West Virginia, and Tennessee.

      There’s that whole “consent of the governed” thing. And it’s not going this administration’s way.

    • harpie says:

      ^ This particular TRUMP LOSER STENCH is documented by the Daily Beast:

      The White House is pulling out all the stops to try and salvage Melania Trump’s documentary, which is projected to bomb when it opens next weekend. […]

  6. harpie says:

    You might have seen the PHOTO of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos.
    It is powerful, as is this WaPo opinion piece by Philip Kennicott about it:

    The abhorrent power of the photograph of a 5-year-old held by ICE
    An image like this could once change history. Can one still?
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/2026/01/22/photo-minnesota-ice/
    Philip Kennicott January 22, 2026

    GIFT Link [which I found on Heather Cox Richardson’s Bluesky feed]:

    https://bsky.app/profile/nfariousactivities.bsky.social/post/3md53544ysk2y
    8:34 PM · Jan 23, 2026

  7. harpie says:

    Man shot and killed by federal agents in south Minneapolis this morning, police chief says
    https://www.startribune.com/ice-raids-minnesota/601546426
    January 24, 2026

    A man was shot and killed by federal agents in south Minneapolis this morning, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said.

    Video shows several agents wrestling the man to the ground
    and shooting him multiple times.

    The Minnesota Star Tribune is on the scene. […]

    • P J Evans says:

      You have to wonder what lie they’ll use to justify shooting someone who’s being held down by multiple DHS employees.
      It’s murder. Again.

    • harpie says:

      Related:
      As ICE arrests surged, Trump administration sought to cut bodycam program
      A string of violent incidents has added fresh urgency to calls for more body-worn cameras. But DHS proposed reducing spending on them in its initial budget proposal. https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2026/01/24/ice-bodycams-cameras-shootings-immigration/ Maria Sacchetti January 24, 2026

      GIFT Link [from Heather Cox Richardson’s Bluesky feed]:
      https://bsky.app/profile/bengin1003.bsky.social/post/3md6hsl4vvs2j
      9:53 AM · Jan 24, 2026

      • Ginevra diBenci says:

        And David Brooks, in a NYT column essentially describing Trump as our Calligula, has the stuffed-shirt temerity to nonetheless opine: “Our institutions are too strong, and our people, deep down, still have the same democratic values.”

        Maybe those “institutions” will continue to protect the likes of David Brooks. They are doing a piss poor job with the denizens of Minneapolis. And while I have searched their narrow slits of human faces for any traces of it, I have failed every time I seek a glimpse of “democratic values” in those masked ICE goons. Cosplay anonymity tends to send such values, along with empathy, down the sucking drain.

        • P-villain says:

          So David Brooks still believes there’s a pony. The last time I did was from roughly 11/15/20 to 1/6/21.

    • harpie says:

      At the news conference:

      https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3md6slxdlmo2k
      1:06 PM · Jan 24, 2026

      [Mpls Emergency Mgmt Director] Sayre:

      “My background is in international humanitarian response in conflict zones in Yemen, Haiti, Syria, Iraq, and Ukraine.

      What I’ve seen here is what I’ve seen there.
      A powerful entity violently and intentionally terrorizing people.” [VIDEO]

      • P J Evans says:

        A video is out, showing what happened. He was standing off to the side, filming them on his phone – other hand was empty. They got out of their vehicles, pushed him back and down, and while they were holding him down, shot him. The first might have been an accident, but the others were not.
        Two views of what happened, one from back, one from front: Warning: violence
        https://bsky.app/profile/alexip718.com/post/3md6uyjftvc2f
        https://bsky.app/profile/barbarasobel.bsky.social/post/3md6nmj3tjs25

      • harpie says:

        Bellingcat analyzes the initial VIDEO, here:

        https://bsky.app/profile/bellingcat.com/post/3md6vleoxks2t
        2:01 PM · Jan 24, 2026

        […] Multiple federal agents can later be seen struggling with the man who is shot. One federal agent is seen approaching with empty hands, before reaching around the man’s waist. [screenshots]

        Moments before the first shot is fired, this federal agent can be seen retreating with a gun. It appears to match the general appearance of the firearm posted by DHS, including the red dot sight. This agent’s back is turned when the first shot occurs. […]

        • N.E. Brigand says:

          I wonder if my eyes are playing tricks on me, because I’ve only seen a few other people mention this, but based on what I believe was the third video to appear (link below), I think it looks like the gray-jacketed agent who is running away with what is generally believed to be Alex Paretti’s gun accidentally shoots it at the ground. There seems to be a slight discoloration (a puff of smoke or a flash?) at the end of the barrel right as the first shot is audible. And one person has pointed out that the object on the ground in the path of the gun appears to move (but not much) at that moment. About one second passes between the sound of that first shot and the sound of the second shot (which is followed very rapidly by the third and fourth shots; there were five more shots after that, but the video at the link below cuts off before we hear them all). And if you watch one of the other videos, Paretti doesn’t seem to move as if he’s just been shot after the first shot is heard (admittedly, I don’t know for sure what the natural reaction would be), but he quickly begins to fall as the next three shots are fired.

          I may be quite mistaken, but to me it seems as if the agents, including the aggressive green-jacketed agent who seems to have caused the whole incident and who already had drawn his own gun a couple seconds earlier (I think when one of the other agents, maybe the gray-jacketed agent, said that Paretti had a gun), may have heard the first shot and thought it came from Paretti, and then fired upon him.

          (There’s an analysis on Reddit which is widely circulating and purports to have spotted the bullet (probably smoke or flash) of the first shot, but I think that it ignores the first shot to focus on the second.)

          Are my eyes just too tired to see clearly?

          https://bsky.app/profile/originalsp.in/post/3md6zc7w3ks2u

        • Memory hole says:

          On the video by Valhalla that someone mentioned here, he has a video that shows the agent that was beating the victim started the entire incident.

          He went up to a woman and violently shoved her to the ground. The victim jumped between the two, as the (SS ?) officer immediately began emptying a container of chemical irritant directly into his face. Then, after several other agents had him crushed to the ground, the instigator started beating him with what appears to be a metal object. Another agent pulled his gun, and immediately a different agent turned to run. Then the first shot is heard. As some agents scatter, the agent who started the altercation began shooting the victim as he lay already shot and motionless on the ground.

      • Memory hole says:

        In one of the videos, you can clearly see the man trapped under about 800lbs of goons. Another “agent” bends over and violently starts beating him on head with a metal object. It looks like a gun, possibly a walkie talkie. But I think it is a gun.

        If so, it could have easily discharged, which would frighten the other ICEstapo brownshirts into firing over and over.

        At least one agent involved in the murder took off running from the crime scene right after the shooting.

      • Memory hole says:

        In rewatching the video, it sounds like the first shot is slightly after the gestapo agent finished beating the victim with a weapon.

  8. Memory hole says:

    One thing really stood out in a bad way for me this week. It was the terrible, cowardly unsigned opinion by someone(s?) on the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, allowing ICEstapo agents to go back to committing violent crimes and illegal arrests against peaceful, protesting Americans.

    How do you block an injunction that tells law enforcement to follow the law? It is hard to understand the seeming anti logic.

    And then, right away we got the video of a gleeful Greg Bovino tossing chemical agents into a crowd. And then walking up to a woman a shoving her, unprovoked.
    And the photo you talked about with the guy held face down on the pavement, while another violent criminal with a badge empties a can of mace or tear gas directly into his face, from inches away.
    Nazis are gonna nazi, apparently.

  9. dael Escher says:

    Looking for MPR article about the sketchy ICE “recent” arrests dating back to 2012.
    Marcy wanted folks to push it out.

  10. Matt Foley says:

    FOUR data center sites could be coming near me. Three would be within a mile of each other. Two of those would be across the river from each other.

    For one 55 acre site the owners wanted it so badly that they gave away 559 acres (worth about $20 million) to the PA Game Commission to get it. (The land swap was just approved today by the game commission.)

    I don’t know how to stop them. The local zoning allows for them. I guess I can look forward to power brownouts and blackouts until Trump can build more Big Beautiful Coal power plants.

    https://www.inquirer.com/real-estate/commercial/limerick-town-center-land-data-center-20260121.html

  11. P J Evans says:

    How many times have governments pushed their citizens into revolting? Because I think we’re close to that point.

    • wa_rickf says:

      There needs to be (at least) three days in a row of a national strike. Shut the effing country down. Make it come to a complete halt.

      WE are in charge. America belongs to us – not some PIG orange clown and his rich oligarch buddies.

      Rwing response: Fox’s Tomi Lahren Hopes Trump Considers Insurrection Act After Minneapolis Shooting

      • P J Evans says:

        She needs to read the insurrection act. It’s for when LAWS ARE NOT ENFORCEABLE, not for when people are protesting goon squads. It isn’t lightly invoked, and Minnesota certainly isn’t a case for it.

  12. P J Evans says:

    MN now has a sworn statement from a doctor who (a) saw the incident from an apartment window and (b) tried to render aid.
    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/1/24/2365283/-Report-from-a-Physician-Who-Examined-Alex-Pretti-at-the-Scene-He-Was-Shot-in-the-Back and at courtlistener: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mnd.229758/gov.uscourts.mnd.229758.109.0.pdf

    11. The victim had at least three bullet wounds in his back. I asked the ICE agents to turn the victim from his side to his back. From that position, I saw an additional gunshot wound in the victim’s upper left chest and another possible gunshot wound on his neck.

    • wa_rickf says:

      Federal agents shooting protesters in the back is so cowardly.

      That’s today’s Trump Administration for you.

      SMH

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