In what is becoming a grim and familiar calculus, the federal government appears to be operating under a new formula: for every act of questionable force, there must follow two acts of frantic suppression.
The news, as it reaches us now, is not merely a series of disconnected events in Minnesota, but the chapters of a single, unsettling story—a story of violence on the street, and of a desperate, retaliatory campaign against the very idea of accountability.
It began, as these things often do, with a flash of violence and a rolling camera during an incident tyrannical President Donald Trump would prefer to keep secret.
In Minneapolis, federal immigration agents, clad in tactical gear that seems better suited for a warzone than an American city, have been deployed in great numbers.
The consequences have been lethal. Two civilian observers are now dead, shot by those Gestapo-like agents.
One of them, a male nurse who posed no real threat, was killed for the simple, sacred act of filming—of attempting to capture for the public record the image of two women being forced to the ground by armed, masked men.
The other was a mother who slowly started to drive away from a federal agent approaching menacingly when she was murdered by another one of Trump’s violent stormtroopers.
An intensive-care nurse named Alex Pretti, was shot dead; early official claims he brandished a weapon have withered under the scrutiny of citizen video. Renee Good was obstructing traffic when she was shot dead.
This is the backdrop against which the latest, and perhaps most revealing, act is playing out.
When a group of protesters entered a St. Paul church where an ICE official serves as a pastor, their chant was a simple one: “ICE out.”
Among those present was Don Lemon, the former CNN anchor who was there to report the news.
The administration sought charges against eight individuals, Lemon included, under a law meant to protect religious worship.
A magistrate judge examined the evidence and found it wanting against Mr. Lemon and four others, approving charges for only three. Unwilling to accept this check, the Justice Department appealed, asking a higher court to force the judge’s hand.
That court also said no.
Yet, in the dead of night in Los Angeles, federal agents arrested Don Lemon anyway.
His lawyer calls it “an unprecedented attack on the First Amendment.”
The administration calls it justice, a lie as obvious as its claims the dead citizens in Minnesota were domestic terrorists.
The plain observer is left to wonder why such strenuous effort is being exerted to jail a journalist for covering a protest, especially when the official story about the shootings of unarmed civilians is crumbling day by day.
It has the distinct odor of a magician’s diversion—a loud arrest on one coast to distract from the bodies in middle America, or perhaps the unresolved questions surrounding the Epstein files that remain locked away.
The internal strain of maintaining this façade is showing.
Within the U.S. Attorney’s office in Minneapolis, prosecutors have openly challenged their leadership over the refusal to investigate the agent-involved shootings.
At least half a dozen have resigned in protest and more are said to be considering that route.
They are, it seems, uncomfortable with the arithmetic of trading warrants for journalists for warrants against gun-toting agents.
Meanwhile, President Trump speaks of a willingness to “de-escalate,” replacing the public face of the operation while the foundation of it—the alleged brutality and the certain opacity—remains untouched.
Spineless Senate Democrats have again surrendered their leverage in exchange for vague promises.
And so we are left with a portrait of an administration in a defensive crouch, lashing out at the cameras and the notepads that dare to document its work.
They shoot a nurse, then arrest a reporter. They brand a mother of three a “terrorist” for being in her car, then petition courts to silence critics in a church.
It is a furious, clumsy attempt to manage the narrative by erasing the narrators. But the truth, like the images from Minneapolis, has a stubborn way of persisting.
The more force used to bury it, the more undeniable its shape becomes when it finally breaks through.
This is the news. And it is a story whose ending has not yet been written by the courts or Congress, but a conclusion may yet be resolved by the conscience of a nation watching its principles be tested, one arrest, and one bullet, at a time.
Activist groups, unions, and some celebrities have called for a general strike –no work, school, or shopping– after fatal shootings by immigration officers in recent weeks in Minnesota.
In a post promoting a “National Shutdown,” Hannah Einbinder wrote on Instagram that “withholding our labor and capital is our most effective leverage. national general strike spread the word!”
Pedro Pascal shared a graphic of Alex Pretti and Renee Good, the two Minnesotans shot by federal agents, that says “Pretti Good Reason For A National Strike,” and posted in support of a larger strike on the 30th.
It’s unclear how widespread participation in the blackout will be or what impact it may have on ICE operations. A website for the “National Shutdown” lists hundreds of organizations as endorsers.
Don Lemon has a date in court, and many news outlets have surrendered to Trump’s malign influence.
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