What happened to Ilia Malinin?

I have always loved figure skating because it combines three of my favorite things: athleticism, music, and dance. So, of course, I've been keeping an eye on Ilia Malinin (aka, "The Quad God") recently. He has revolutionized the sport and taken it to a whole new level in a way that only a handful of athletes have ever done. 

When Malinin stepped onto Olympic ice on Friday in Milan, Italy, he led the field by five points. Beyond that, skaters from Japan and France - who were in second and third place - had skated poorly. Based on the technical merits of Ilia's program, it wouldn't have mattered if they had skated perfectly. A clean skate by the American would have given him the gold medal with lots of room to spare.

If you've been paying attention to the Olympics, you know that's not what happened. Malinin's program was a disaster - so much so that he wound up in 8th place overall. Like the rest of the world, I was in shock. 

Almost immediately, the recovering therapist in me began to try to construct what happened because it was obvious that the failure was a result of Ilia's mental game. In an interview immediately after his skate, he mentioned that perhaps he was overconfident and owned that he blew it. 

That's when I thought about his performance two months ago at the ISU Grand Prix Final in Japan. Ilia hadn't skated well in the short program and found himself in third place - a position he hadn't been in for quite some time. Under those circumstances, here's how he responded in the free skate. 

At the end of that program, Ilia almost looked like he was angry. He was fighting back and skating as if to prove something to himself and the audience. The result was a perfect skate that included a quadruple axel (something no other human has ever done in competition) and seven quad jumps (another feat no other human has ever accomplished). The announcers were absolutely speechless. Ilia's score for that skate was 238, a world record and 82 points higher than he earned Friday at the Olympics.

More than the pressure of the Olympics (which must have been epic for this young man), I'd suggest that the difference between his performance at the Grand Prix Final and the Olympics captures the biggest takeaway when we wonder WTH happened to Ilia. At the former, he had to go out and fight for it. When it came time for the Olympics, the gold medal was practically handed to him on a platter. 

This is part of Ilia's personality that he he's talked about before. For example, after placing second in the U.S. Nationals competition, he wasn't invited to be part of the 2022 U.S. Olympic team. He's said that it was his anger at that decision that pushed him to stretch and expand what is possible in the sport. Fighting back is what made him the phenomenon he became. 

On the one hand, this is an obstacle Ilia will have to figure out how to overcome. There's no going back on his talent and skills as the best figure skater in the world today. On the other hand, it will be fascinating to watch how this disastrous performance at the Olympics affects his skating going forward. I have a hunch that the next time he steps on the ice he will do so with a vengeance that could rock the figure skating world. It's likely to look something like this:

Struggling with the yin/yang of this moment

Every morning as I peruse the news I feel like I'm on an emotional roller coaster. I feel the rage/grief as I read headlines like "Immigrant whose skull was broken in 8 places during ICE arrest says beating was unprovoked." On the other hand, I feel hope/pride as I read ones like "Nearly 30,000 Minnesotans trained as constitutional observers."

I suspect that's precisely why these lines from the Charles Dickens book, "A Tale of Two Cities" are so often quoted.

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...

Dickens captured something important that flies in the face of much that we believe about the world. It is in moments of darkness that light shines its brightest. 

All of that is why today, I'm thinking a lot about the ancient taoist idea of Yin/Yang.  

Don't ask me what I mean by all of that because honestly, I don't know. It just seems like a truism we're living out on a daily basis right now. I suspect it's has something to do with embracing the fact that we're intensely experiencing both the dark/light and not getting caught up in denying either one. 

Or maybe it's about something that showed up on my Facebook feed a few days before the winter solstice.

This is how I see humanity most days. Right when it feels like everything is tightening. When empathy gets quieter, patience runs thin, and it seems easier for people to choose outrage over understanding. When it feels like we’re losing more ground than we’re gaining.

But that’s the trick of the season. The darkest stretch convinces you this is how it will stay.

We’re three days from gaining daylight again. Not because anyone fixed everything overnight, but because cycles still exist. Because even after all our noise, the planet keeps reminding us that contraction is not the end of the story.

The light doesn’t rush back. It returns slowly. A minute here. A breath there. And somehow, that’s enough to change the direction of everything.

Maybe humanity is there too. Not healed. Not solved. Just quietly turning back toward something better, whether we notice it yet or not.

One thing I DO know is that this is still my favorite Bruce Springsteen performance. 

Trump's organizing principle: racism

During a discussion with Chris Hayes, Adam Serwer offered a great response to Donald Trump's racist social media post about the Obamas. 

Adam Serwer: “Donald Trump is still psychically wounded by the election of Barack Obama.” @adamserwer.bsky.social

[image or embed]

— Barbara Kaskosz (@kaskosz.bsky.social) February 6, 2026 at 7:45 PM

Here's what Serwer said: 

What people have to understand is that people like Donald Trump think that they are better that other people, not because of something that they've done, but because they are white. And so when they are confronted with an example of Black genius - for example, the first Black President of the United States - they have this violent emotional reaction, because they feel like their place in the hierarchy has been disturbed. And so they have to put Black people back in their place...What's very clear is that Donald Trump is still psychically wounded by the election of Barack Obama and his ongoing popularity. 

Chris Hayes also noted that, for Trump, racism is "an organizing principle." He's right. And it doesn't just apply to the Obamas.

To demonstrate, let's go back a couple of months to late November when the New York Times published an article about welfare fraud in Minnesota. Then in December, right wing podcaster Nick Shirley released a video of lies about fraud in Minnesota daycare centers. For most of December, MAGA was on offense, having hit the trifecta of a way to undermine Democratic Governor Tim Walz, demonize immigrants, and trash the social safety net. Democrats were on their heels trying to figure out how to respond - leading Walz to drop out of the governor's race in Minnesota.

How did Trump respond to all of that? Did he send in teams of prosecutors to investigate and prosecute fraud? No. He called Somalis "garbage" and said he wanted to kick them all out of the country. Then on January 6th, DHS announced the launch of the largest immigration enforcement operation ever carried out, sending 2,000 agents to Minnesota. 

Last week Mark Mitchell, head pollster at the right wing firm Rasmussen, wrote something I agree with - but from the opposite perspective.

The discovery of rampant alleged fraud in Minnesota was a gift. It offered a rare opportunity to shift the national conversation away from Republican dysfunction and toward something Americans overwhelmingly agree on. Three-quarters of voters are angry about the level of waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government...

This was the moment for a full-scale, anti-blue-state fraud push. Follow the money. Subpoena everything. Make examples. Send every agency in, even the 80,000 armed IRS agents we should have fired. If fraud is that widespread, maybe austerity is not the answer. Maybe arrests are.

Instead, the focus shifted.

ICE was surged into Minneapolis. What could have been a systemic fraud investigation became a performative deportation spectacle. Predictable protests followed. Then escalation: more ICE presence, masks, tear gas, aggressive enforcement. Within days, the headlines were no longer about uncovering fraud. They were about clashes, optics, and ultimately the tragic shooting deaths of two protesters.

Donald Trump is so consumed with racism that he missed the opportunity to implement a "full-scale, anti-blue-state fraud push" and, instead, let his goons loose in Minnesota to terrorize people of color. The political backlash to the latter has been epic.

Meanwhile, when it comes to fraud, the administration's actions have resulted in a decimation of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Minnesota, leading to a level of incompetence that is staggering.  

Trump's posting of the video of the Obamas demonstrates that, rather than learning from his mistakes, he is preparing to double-down on racism. I suspect that he is not capable of doing otherwise. His narcissistic ego is dependent on thinking he's better than other people because he's white.

The Big Lie of Trump's Second Term

During an interview with Megyn Kelly on Wednesday, VP Vance said that the Biden administration let in "20 million illegal aliens." On the same day, President Trump told NBC News anchor Tom Llamas that "We allowed in our country, I say, 25 million people with an open-border policy for four years under Biden" It's something that we hear consistently from this administration. Way too many people believe that those claims are true, so let's do a bit of a fact check.

First of all, what about those numbers? It is true that, during the Biden administration, the country saw a record number of people attempting to cross the border. Factors that led to that crisis include the reality that the U.S. recovered from the COVID crisis much faster than other countries as well as the fact that there was economic and political upheaval in places that led to an increase in the number of people fleeing their home countries. Here's what that looked like:

The claim is that Biden had an open border policy, allowing all of those migrants to enter the U.S. But with that increase in "illegal crossings" came an increase in the number of deportations, returns, and expulsions.

In terms of percentages, Trump removed 47% of border crossers during his first term, while Biden removed 51%.

The other way to fact check the claim about Biden allowing 20-25 million people to enter the country illegally is to take a look at how many undocumented immigrants are actually in the country. The most respected organization on that front is Pew Research. They documented that the number did grow sharply from 2021-2023, but nothing near the numbers we're hearing from MAGA.

Rather than an increase of 20-25 million, we see an increase of about 3.5 million. It's important to note that the increase during the Biden administration came almost exclusively from immigrants with some form of protection from deportation.

There are other actions that Biden took that give lie to the claims that he had an open border policy (not all of them supported by immigrant rights groups).

• The first bill he sent to Congress was the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021 - a measure for immigration reform. It was rejected by Republicans.
• He kept Title 42 in place until its expiration on May 11, 2023.
• He sent 1,500 National Guard troops to the border and hired processing coordinators to free up Border Patrol agents to carry out expulsions.
• He increased US removal flights by 55 percent.
• In February 2024, he negotiated a bi-partisan border control bill that would have closed loopholes in the asylum process, limited the use of parole for migrants at the border and given the president new authority to effectively shut down the border to migrants when attempted crossings are high. Trump told Republicans to reject the bill and they complied.
• In June 2024, he shut down asylum requests once the average number of daily encounters reached 2,500 between official ports of entry.

That last bullet is one of the main reasons why so many of these data points stopped being compiled after 2023. As Pew reported, migrant encounters fell sharply in 2024.

It is important to recount this history because the lies about the number of undocumented immigrants and claims about Biden's open border policy form the basis of MAGA's complete embrace of the white nationalist great replacement theory. As an example, this video was recently reposted by Trump on social media.

WATCH: The Democrat Open Borders Plan to Entrench Single-Party Rule | Explained in Under Two Minutes pic.twitter.com/uWJxBiKive

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) March 19, 2024

Those lies have become so entrenched that this morning on CNBC Joe Kernan brought them up with Democratic Senator Chris Coons.

As Republicans attempt to pass voter suppression efforts like the SAVE Act and Trump talks about the federal government taking over state elections, these are the lies they'll rely on to go beyond terrorizing local communities and start attempting to control elections. It is important that we all stay armed with the facts.   

Stephen Miller and his pals want medicine to be racist again

While Stephen Miller is busy directing a terror campaign across America in an attempt to implement his white supremacist vision for the country, the law firm he founded - America First Legal - is working to inject racism back into medicine .Yes, you read that right. Here's the backstory.

For decades, the test used to determine whether a patient is eligible for a kidney transplant (GFR) was modified for Black people to artificially elevate their kidney function scores by 16-21% based on flawed assumptions about higher muscle mass. One study estimated that without that race correction, 3.3 million more Black Americans would have been diagnosed with a higher stage of chronic kidney disease. 

It wasn't until 2022 that UNOS, the organization that manages the kidney donor list, ordered hospitals to use only race-neutral test results in adding new patients to the kidney waiting list. But they took it a step further.

The transplant network gave hospitals a year to uncover which Black kidney candidates could have qualified for a new kidney sooner if not for the race-based test — and adjust their waiting time to make up for it...Between January 2023 and mid-March [2024], more than 14,300 Black kidney transplant candidates have had their wait times modified, by an average of two years.

It's that last part that has white supremacists lighting their hair on fire about DEI initiatives in the Biden administration.

Mr. Biden’s health czars discovered “systemic racism” everywhere they turned, and their remedy for this malady was to impose reparations. They granted preferential treatment to certain ethnic groups when they needed an operation to replace their kidneys...this meant paying less attention to the 40,000 white men and women who are just as desperate for the chance to stay alive.

“With thousands of Americans dying on transplant waitlists each year, the public has a right to full transparency into how this program was created, because discrimination has no place in medicine,” AFL attorney Megan Redshaw said in a statement.

Did you catch that? What they're suggesting is that any attempt to remedy discrimination is, in fact, discrimination. As I wrote previously, "They aren't just attempting to roll back civil rights protections. They're claiming that any move to enforce civil rights is discrimination" against white men. A simpler way of putting it would be to say "they're using the concept of civil rights to enforce white supremacy." Stephen Miller and his pals at AFL want medicine to be racist again.

Dr. Oz does his best imitation of Nick Shirley

On December 25, 2025, right wing podcaster Nick Shirley released a video full of lies about fraud in Minnesota daycare centers. Trump responded by launching Operation Metro Surge - which has now turned into a nightmare for his administration. 

The president and his MAGA allies desperately want to turn the national narrative back to allegations of fraud in Minnesota. As part of that effort, Dr. Oz, who is in charge of Medicare and Medicaid services, travelled to the state with his buddy, Jim O'Neill (HHS Deputy Secretary) and did their best to imitate Nick Shirley.  

🚨 BREAKING: Dr. Oz and Jim O’Neill said they discovered a former linen factory in Minnesota that was converted into 400 Medicaid businesses, generating nearly half a billion dollars. 🤯

pic.twitter.com/as3BquX2i4

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) January 23, 2026

This effort would be humorous if it weren't so tragic. Almost everything Dr. Oz said is a lie. For example, the Griggs-Midway building was originally a food manufacturing plant when it was built in 1912 - not a linen factory. It was converted into an office building in 1955. 

While it is true that there is an industrial area to the northwest of the building, it is surrounded by residential areas to the west and south. 

 

I know about this building because it used to house one of the best Vietnamese restaurants in the city. It has also been home to state and public offices including the Ramsey County Workforce Center, MN Department of Human Rights, MN State Arts Board, and Public Defenders. It's a hub for government, nonprofits, and small businesses.

One of Dr. Oz's statements is particularly problematic for Twin Cities residents. The Griggs-Midway building is in St. Paul - not Minneapolis. Those of us who have lived in the former find this kind of confusion particularly troublesome. 

But let's get to the heart of the matter. Here's the big lie:

Roughly 400 Medicaid businesses were started in the building behind me over the last several years. They generated about $380 million of billing that you, the taxpayer, were putting up. That means roughly every business had a million dollars of billing...

The question is, how is it possible 400 businesses billing almost $400 million were able to thrive here? What did the owener of this building think was happeing inside? Why did no one in the state think this was a concern?

I have no idea where the allegation of 400 Medicaid businesses billing almost $400 million comes from. But here's what happened back in July 2025.

FBI agents on Wednesday raided five Twin Cities businesses and two homes as part of an investigation into Medicaid housing assistance fraud...

Twenty-two purported providers have business addresses at the Griggs-Midway Building on University Ave. in St. Paul. They collectively billed taxpayers $8 million over 17 months and used fake documentation to back their claims, the FBI alleges.

By September 2025, four of the five businesses targeted in the raid were charged in federal court. The fifth business was charged in December. While Dr. Oz wonders why no one is concerned, the truth is that state and federal officials have been on the case for months now. As all of that was unfolding, Gov. Walz completely shut down the housing assistance fund in October last year. 

The good doctor ends his nonsense with this:

There has been a censoring of the truth, and an inability to own what is happening in this state that is concerning to me. They talk about being "nice" in Minnesota, I want to be nice too, but a good person doesn't always have to be nice. They have to be truthful and honest.

Excuse me while I get a little blunt here, but - much like his pal Nick Shirley - Dr. Oz wouldn't know the truth if it bit him in the *ss. 

Why did the Trump administration target Minnesota?

The question in my title is one a lot of people are asking, but not many in the media are addressing. As I've pondered it, I've come up with four reasons.

First of all, Donald Trump is a racist. He wants to rid the country of people from places he calls "shithole countries." Given that Minnesota is home to the largest number of Somali residents, the state became a target when Nick Shirley posted his video with lies about fraud in Somali-run daycare centers.

Secondly, the state's governor, Tim Walz, became an enemy when he ran for vice-president on a ticket with Kamala Harris.

Thirdly, Trump lost Minnesota in all three of his presidential campaigns. As a matter of fact, the state hasn't voted for a Republican in a presidential race since 1972. 

I'm going to let Timothy Snider explain the fourth reason.

To give you some idea of what Snyder is talking about, Gov. Tim Walz posted this on Facebook last October:

Just this year, Minnesota has ranked:
A top 10 state for safety.
A top 5 state to live in.
A top 3 state for jobs.
A top 3 state to retire.
The 2nd best state to raise a family.
The 2nd best state for children. 

A bet against Minnesota is a bad bet.

As an example, WalletHub recently rated Minnesota as the second best state to raise a family. Their ranking included measures like affordability, safety, strong job opportunities, and access to quality education, healthcare, and entertainment. Here's what they wrote about Minnesota:

Minnesota is a great place to find a job to support your family, as it has the second-highest median family income, at over $109,000, adjusted for the cost of living. It also has the second-lowest poverty rate for families and the eighth-lowest wealth gap between the lowest and highest earners. In addition to good pay, residents also receive reliable long-term benefits, as Minnesota ranks 13th in the country for employer-based retirement plan access and participation.

Another great thing about raising a family in the Land of 10,000 Lakes is what it can do for your children’s health. The state has the fifth-highest life expectancy at birth and the sixth-best public hospitals in the country. It also encourages children to stay fit amid the obesity epidemic, as it has the eighth-highest percentage of children who live in neighborhoods with a park or playground.

To top things off, families tend to stay together in Minnesota, as it has the fifth-lowest separation and divorce rate in the country.

Also worth noting is that Minnesota consistently rates at the top in terms of voter turnout. 

The history that contributed to Minnesota being a state that works has been documented by many people. I've written about it a couple of times in the past myself. I would also point out that, while the rest of the country was still recovering from the COVID pandemic, state and federal officials were already investigating fraud in the Feed Our Future program. Similarly, state and federal officials began investigating fraud in daycare centers over a decade ago. Can you name a state that has done a better job of prosecuting fraud?

The occupation of Minnesota has been an attempt to destroy a state that works. But ironically, everything that contributes to that success has also contributed to the failure of Operation Metro Surge. Adam Serwer captured it best in an article titled, "Minnesota Proved MAGA Wrong."

In Minnesota, all of the ideological cornerstones of MAGA have been proved false at once. Minnesotans, not the armed thugs of ICE and the Border Patrol, are brave. Minnesotans have shown that their community is socially cohesive—because of its diversity and not in spite of it. Minnesotans have found and loved one another in a world atomized by social media, where empty men have tried to fill their lonely soul with lies about their own inherent superiority. Minnesotans have preserved everything worthwhile about “Western civilization,” while armed brutes try to tear it down by force.

As Gov. Walz said, "a bet against Minnesota is a bad bet." 

The entire ICE operation in Minnesota is based on lies

A few days before Alex Pretti was murdered, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem released a ridiculous statement.

We have arrested over 10,000 criminal illegal aliens who were killing Americans, hurting children and reigning terror in Minneapolis because Tim Walz and Jacob Frey refuse to protect their own people and instead protect criminals. In the last 6 weeks, our brave DHS law enforcement have arrested 3,000 criminal illegal aliens including vicious murderers, rapists, child pedophiles, and incredibly dangerous individuals. A huge victory for public safety.

The numbers can't be verified because DHS won't release all of the names of those that have been arrested. What they HAVE done is release the names of 240 individuals they call "the worst of the worst." As I noted previously, the Minnesota Star Tribune analyzed the list and found that those with actual felonies were either in federal prisons (managed by federal - not state - authorities) or were transferred to ICE when their prison sentences were completed. 

But the lies coming from DHS about their operations in Minnesota have become so ubiquitous that the state Department of Corrections has developed a web page, "Combatting DHS Misinformation" to document them. Here's what they wrote about Noem's claims:

DHS’s “Worst of the Worst” (WOW) website...allows users to search by state and city for “criminal illegal aliens that have been removed from their state.”

DOC quickly identified 68 cases in which individuals were lawfully transferred from Minnesota Department of Corrections custody directly to ICE, only for DHS officials to falsely claim these same individuals were “arrested” by waves of federal agents deployed into Minnesota communities...

What is troubling is DHS taking credit for “arrests” which are, in reality, state-to-federal handoffs occurring at prison facilities after individuals complete their state terms of imprisonment, as has been the long-standing practice.

Again, DOC is compelled to release this information because DHS continues to rely on these misrepresentations to justify expanded federal operations in Minnesota.

As just one example, Bovino said that the operation that was underway when Alex Pretti was shot involved a criminal illegal alien with a violent rap sheet that included domestic assault involving intentional bodily harm. 

MN DOC officials reviewed public records and found "no felony commitments associated with this individual." Here's what they DID find:

DOC records further indicate that an individual by this name was previously held in federal immigration custody in a local Minnesota jail in 2018, during President Trump’s first administration. Any decisions regarding release from federal custody at that time would have been made by federal authorities. DOC has no information explaining why this individual was released.

So Bovino and his thugs were out trying to track down someone the Trump administration had released from federal immigration custody in 2018. Furthermore, the individual in question is Ecuadorian - which might explain why ICE agents attempted to illegally enter the Ecuadorian consulate in Minneapolis on Tuesday. 

It is important for all of us to recognize that the Trump administration isn't just lying about the murder of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. They're lying about the entire operation in Minnesota. They make up numbers about how many people have been arrested and claim they're deporting the "worst of the worst" when what they're really doing is simply what has always been done: those in prison who are undocumented are being turned over to ICE to be deported once their prison sentences are complete.

Meanwhile the entire population of the state is being terrorized by agents randomly grabbing folks because of the color of their skin or the sound of their accent in the hopes of finding someone who is undocumented to fill the quota set by Stephen Miller.  

Why MAGA will never understand Minnesota

On Memorial Day 2017, Donald Trump and his then-chief of staff John Kelly went to Arlington Cemetery. After visiting the grave of Kelly's son Robert, who was killed in Afghanistan, Trump said, "I don't get it. What was in it for them?" More than anything else he's ever said, that gives us a window into the perverted soul of the man who is currently the president.

Donald Trump and his MAGA administration literally don't have a clue about what it means to sacrifice for your neighbors or your country. That's precisely why they'll never understand Alex Pretti, Renee Good, or anyone else who is standing up against the tyranny we're witnessing. 

I am reminded of something Sun Tzu, wrote in The Art of War.

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

For years now it's been clear that the only play Donald Trump and Stephen Miller know is dominance. They spread fear and assume we'll cower in response to force. That isn't how things are playing out in Minnesota. The more they terrorize, the more the resistance grows.

One of the hallmarks of sociopaths like Trump and Miller is the inability to experience empathy - which is defined as the ability to perceive another person's perspective. Meanwhile, MAGA is being told that empathy is toxic, a sin, the feminization of our culture (as if that's a bad thing), and the fundamental weakness of Western civilization. That makes it impossible for them to incorporate Sun Tzu's advice about "knowing your enemy." 

What MAGA substitutes for empathy is projection - the mental process in which an individual attributes their own internal thoughts, beliefs, emotions, experiences, and personality traits to another person or group. So Renee Good and Alex Pretti become "domestic terrorists" and protesters become "paid agitators" while MAGA continues with its fantasy that increased fear and terror will result in compliance.

That's the cycle we're in now. It's the same one that we witnessed between Sheriff Bull Connor and civil rights protesters. The former assumed that fire hoses, dogs, and jails would subdue those fighting for their rights. It didn't work. Instead, too many white people got disgusted with the tactics of terror and supported the end of Jim Crow. 

I'm still wrestling with questions about why so much of this is playing out in my home state of Minnesota. Perhaps I'll write about that soon. But I DO know something about why it's not going as Stephen Miller planned. Here's something that showed up on my Facebook page about a week after Renee Good was murdered (emphasis mine):

Winter teaches you quickly that survival is collective. You pay attention. You intervene. You do not leave people stranded. Ever.

In Minnesota, ice is something you learn to negotiate together. You slow down. You help. You know how easily things can go wrong if you don’t.

That’s why this other ICE feels like such a violation of who we are.

In Minnesota, we don’t solve danger by making it worse. We don’t respond to fear by escalating it. We show up. We de-escalate. We get each other home.

So yes, we will keep saying Renee Good’s name. We will help our immigrant neighbors. We will bear witness.

Because this is how we survive here.

People who lack empathy will NEVER understand that. They'll never understand that Renee Good and Alex Pretti (along with the 50,000 who marched on Friday) simply wanted their neighbors to be treated humanely. Instead, Trump would wonder "what's in it for them?" 

Fact checking Trump's "worst of the worst"

At a press conference on Tuesday, President Trump held up pictures of some of the "worst of the worst" criminals that ICE has arrested in Minnesota. They come from a list publicized by the Department of Homeland Security.

Thanks to the Minnesota Star Tribune, we now have data on what those numbers represent for Operation Metro Surge in this state. Federal officials say they’ve arrested 3,000 immigrants in Minnesota.

They've only released the names of 240 (7%) of those arrested and described as the "worst of the worst." Of those:

• 70 have felony convictions for violent crimes. For example, one man, who pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in 2005 and has been in prison, was released and deported in October - before Metro Surge started.
• 70 have been in Minnesota serving time in federal prison. Federal policies require immigrants who commit crimes to serve their sentences before being deported. ICE is aware they are in custody and can deport them upon release.
• 48 violated immigration law by re-entering the U.S. after deportation.
• 12 had petty misdemeanor offenses like traffic tickets.
• 12 had no state record of past convictions or prison sentences.
• Others had criminal histories that are decades old and have completed their sentences.

In other words, after all of the terror being inflicted on this state, the best that can be said about deporting criminals is that ICE has arrested about 50 immigrants who either re-entered the U.S. after deportation or have committed petty misdemeanor offenses. The remainder of the "worst of the worst" would have either been deported regardless of the surge, or there is no history of criminal activity. 

Trump used the accusations of fraud in Minnesota to implement the surge targeted at Somalis. The problem the administration faced with that goal is that only about 5,000 Somalis in this state (with a population of 5.8 million) are not citizens. That figure includes people here through other legal means, such as permanent residents and green card holders.

Overall the number of undocumented immigrants in Minnesota is very small.

Finding that less than 1% is pretty close to the equivalent of finding a needle in a haystack. When so few of that 1% are violent criminals (most of whom the state or federal government has already prosecuted), snatching brown/black people off the street or at gas stations is obviously not an effective strategy. 

None of that has stopped this administration from terrorizing the entire state. So I'll take a hard pass on all of this having anything to do with either immigration or crime.

ICE is terrorizing an "All American City"

It's important to understand that ICE hasn't just invaded the Twin Cities metro area. They're also in places like the town of Willmar, MN, which is about 100 miles west of Minneapolis. For example:

Federal agents detained three workers from a family-owned Mexican restaurant in Willmar, Minn., on Jan. 15, hours after four agents ate lunch there...

An eyewitness who declined to give a name for fear of retribution, told the Minnesota Star Tribune that four ICE agents sat in a booth for a meal at El Tapatio restaurant a little before 3 p.m. Staff at the restaurant were frightened, said the eyewitness, who shared pictures from the restaurant as well as video of the arrest.

The arrest happened around 8:30 p.m. near a Lutheran church and Willmar Middle School as agents followed the workers after they closed up for the night.

Here's a personal account of another abduction from Facebook: 

My husband was kidnapped tonight by ICE.

He is a born and raised Willmar, Minnesotan. Officers rushed his car. He gave his ID and complied. Without running his license, he was slammed against the car, hand cuffed, and thrown in a vehicle and was taken. They must have finally ran his ID 1/4 mile down the road, because they pulled in a parking lot, uncuffed him, threw him out of the car and threw his ID at him and took off. He then had to walk back to his car to drive back to work. 

This is wrong. This is terrifying. This is completely unjust. I am full of rage and terror. This must stop. ICE does not care what you look like. They are taking everyone and asking questions after kidnapping.

Immigrants have been a vital part of Willmar for decades. Latinos first came as agricultural workers in the 1920s and settled in the town to work at the turkey-processing company, Jennie-O. In the 1990s, Somalis joined other immigrant groups working in the same plant. Here's an interesting perspective on that from Willmar's former mayor, Les Heitke.

Coincidentally, the founder of Jennie-O—Earl B. Olson—had an immigrant background himself, being the son of Swedish émigrés. Thus, as Heitke points out, the current influx of Somali and Latino immigrants into Willmar is by no means an unprecedented trend. Rather, it can be understood as a continuation of the city's long history of immigration. According to Heitke, the area started out as a service center for passing trains and was settled by immigrants working on the railroad. As time passed, businesses sprang up and the community grew...Somalis are only the most recent addition.

In 2005, Willmar received the "All-America City" designation from the National Civic League for outstanding civic accomplishments. Then, in 2006, this happened:

From that video, here's a still shot of the moment I teared up.

In 2019, NYT columnist Thomas Friedman visited Willmar and invited Donald Trump to do the same, stating that diversity was the lifeblood of the town. 

America is actually a checkerboard of towns and cities — some rising from the bottom up and others collapsing from the top down, ravaged by opioids, high unemployment among less-educated white males and a soaring suicide rate. I’ve been trying to understand why some communities rise and others fall — and so many of the answers can be found in Willmar.

Eight years later, when Trump referred to Minnesota Somalis as "garbage," a woman from Willmar invited friends to join her for lunch at a local Somali restaurant as a way of showing support for their neighbors. Here's what happened:

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This is an example of just one community being terrorized by ICE in Minnesota. 

Why MAGA does't understand us

Here's what Renee Good's wife, Becca Good, wrote about her:

[I]f you ever encountered my wife, Renee Nicole Macklin Good, you know that above all else, she was kind. In fact, kindness radiated out of her.

Renee sparkled. She literally sparkled. I mean, she didn’t wear glitter but I swear she had sparkles coming out of her pores. All the time. You might think it was just my love talking but her family said the same thing. Renee was made of sunshine.

Here's what Renee's family had to say about her: 

 

It would be understandable to assume they were exaggerating...until you saw the video of Renee saying "That's fine, dude. I'm not mad at you" to the officer who murdered her seconds later. Calmness and kindness did, indeed, radiate from her.

That didn't stop Trump from describing her as "very radical,” “very violent,” and “highly disrespectful” toward law enforcement. For MAGA, Renee is representative of everything they believe to be true of those who protest: we're paid operatives, domestic terrorists, and radical leftists who hate America. 

Regardless of whether they're intentionally lying or really believe all of that, it is a gross misunderstanding of what is happening. Without empathy, all these MAGA folks have is projections, leaving them clueless about us. That's especially true when it comes to Minnesotans. 

For example, today I saw a gorgeous post on Facebook. Here's a bit of it:

I grew up in Texas. But I’ve lived in Minnesota for more than twenty years, long enough to know what it asks of people and what it quietly gives back.

I don’t love the cold. I especially hate the ice. But I love what the cold has made necessary.

She went on to describe her own personal experiences of getting stuck in the snow/ice and the strangers who came to her aid. Then she wrote this (emphasis mine):

Winter teaches you quickly that survival is collective. You pay attention. You intervene. You do not leave people stranded. Ever.

In Minnesota, ice is something you learn to negotiate together. You slow down. You help. You know how easily things can go wrong if you don’t.

That’s why this other ICE feels like such a violation of who we are.

In Minnesota, we don’t solve danger by making it worse. We don’t respond to fear by escalating it. We show up. We de-escalate. We get each other home.

I was reminded of something that happened about a month ago in a residential area of the Twin Cities when a bus got stuck in the snow. A man who was walking his dog saw what was happening and went home to get his truck and shovel. As he began shoveling, the entire neighborhood showed up to help. 

So is it any wonder that, when our friends/neighbors are under attack from ICE we offer any kind of support we can?

Of course we're angry - even rageful. But here's what Rebecca Solnit wrote about that a few months ago:

[B]ehind that rage is care...you are angry the children are being bombed or the forest is being cleared because you care about them, so it’s not the feelings about the forces of destruction that is primary. It’s the love, and not losing sight of that is crucial.

Stephen Miller, who is obviously the mastermind behind the fascist invasion of my home state, recently told Jake Tapper that "we live in a world, in the real world, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power." That is why he and his MAGA followers will never understand what is happening in Minnesota. We know that survival is collective...and we're intent on sticking together. 

How Trump is radicalizing Minnesota (and America)

Two years ago, Rep. Angie Craig was one of fourteen Democrats who joined Republicans in voting for a non-binding resolution "Denouncing the Biden administration’s open-borders policies, condemning the national security and public safety crisis along the southwest border, and urging President Biden to end his administration’s open-borders policies." 

Craig had won re-election in 2022 with only 50.9% of the vote in one of the only swing districts left in Minnesota. So, leading up to the 2024 election, she seems to have felt the need appeal to the anti-immigrant vibe sweeping the nation. 

Fast forward two years and we are in the midst of an invasion of Minnesota by the Trump administration based on the notion that there is a need to sweep up immigrants, deny them due process, and deport them. It has resulted in the murder of a 37 year-old mother. 

I was struck by how much Craig has changed her tune. Here she is with Ali Velschi after being denied access to an ICE detention facility. You can tell that she's really pissed - especially with her reference to "ICE Barbie." 

  

I was reminded that this was one of my favorite signs from the No Kings demonstration.

In that sense, Craig - a natural centrist - has been radicalized by the actions of this administration. I suspect that's true of a lot of Minnesotans (and perhaps Americans in general).

Donald Trump is too ignorant to understand that the harder he comes at us, the harder we fight back!

Why MAGA lies work

I said my "thank you" to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and support him in making the decision to not seek reelection - especially given that his daughter Hope has affirmed that his family's safety was a factor in that decision.  

But from a purely political standpoint, I disagree with Ed Kilgore, who wrote that it was a wise move by Walz.

[A] burgeoning scandal involving fraud in pandemic-era child care and Medicaid initiatives in Minnesota had become a huge national GOP talking point, reinforcing MAGA narratives of criminal immigrants entering the U.S. to rip off taxpayers and prey on law-abiding citizens. It guaranteed a 2026 gubernatorial campaign fought on exactly the wrong grounds for Walz and his party, offering a big blue-state upset opportunity for Republicans.

Kilgore is right that this story became a huge national talking point. As I wrote previously, it gave MAGA an opportunity to attack Walz, demonize immigrants, and go after this country's social safety net. The Democratic Party should never back down from those fights. 

A former associate of mine, Nekima Levy Armstrong, articulated the issue very well.

Watching Democrats repeatedly step aside under political and media pressure has become deeply dispiriting. Not because controversy doesn’t matter, but because the party continues to treat it as fatal rather than something to confront and survive. In a political climate where attacks are constant and often deliberately manufactured, this reflex doesn’t signal integrity. It signals vulnerability...

When Democrats respond to bad-faith attacks by retreating, they don’t just lose candidates. They legitimize the tactic. They teach voters that propaganda works, that cruelty carries no cost, and that marginalized communities can be used as political weapons without consequence. Whatever the intentions, the cumulative effect is strategic capitulation.

In case you doubt what she's saying, just take a look at that screenshot of Nick Shirley's latest video up above. The lying racists are claiming victory. And if you think that's the end of it, take a look at how the right is ramping up the same claims in Maine against Gov. Janet Mills. Or the fact that MAGA influencer Benny Johnson just announced that "Next week our team is traveling to the fraud capital of the world: California. The fraud uncovered in Minnesota was very bad and led to the destruction of Tim Walz’ career. But Gavin Newsom’s California is far worse."

This isn't about blaming Walz for his decision. But where were Democrats and major media outlets in calling out the racism/lies. All some intrepid journalist would have to do is actually watch the video represented by that screenshot up above and they'd hear a constant stream of hateful Islamophobia and outright lies. And yet most media outlets stood by and let these assholes take down one of the most accomplished governors in the country - while liberal pundits claim that retreating from our core values was a wise move. 

 I felt the same frustration when President Biden stepped aside. I'll now re-write what I said previously:

The truth is that Tim Walz's governorship was a tremendous success. There is a reason why that poses a big threat to Trump and Republicans.

Republicans want Democrats on their heels apologizing for Tim Walz because, as the Trump administration focuses on undoing everything Democrats have accomplished, they want to ensure that no governor in the future tries to replicate it.

I, for one, will not capitulate to that nonsense and I'll call out any Democrat who does. What Tim Walz accomplished in office was a huge step forward for this state. I'm not only grateful to him personally, I proudly embrace his vision of making the government work for ordinary Americans.

Democrats should NOT adopt the same smear campaigns as Republicans. But what we CAN do is stand up and fight for each other when one of our own is under attack. That's what teamwork is all about. I really don't understand why Democrats (not just elected officials and party leaders, but pundits and voters too) are so bad at that.

Thank you Gov. Walz

I am both angry and sad to learn that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will not run for re-election. 

The anger I feel is because the firehose of lies about Walz and my home state seem to have worked. I don't fault Walz for getting out - he and his family have been dealing with this sh*t for years now. They deserve a break. I blame every MAGA who jumped on the bandwagon - regardless of whether they were motivated by Walz himself, their hatred of immigrants, their desire to dismantle our social safety net, or all three.

But there is a sadness about all of this as well. That's because, over the years, I've come to respect Tim Walz and his family. The Minnesota Indivisible Alliance captured a lot of the reasons why.

Tim Walz didn’t enter politics chasing power. He came in because the kids he taught forced him to think that he— a teacher, a Guardsman, a coach —owed the country something. He won a deep-red congressional district by showing up and listening.

When he ran for governor, he ran on steadiness, competence, and “One Minnesota” on the promise that there was no we/them but one us. ..

In 2022, reelection and a Democratic trifecta allowed him to get stuff done. Allied with Melissa Hortman and Kari Dzic they got: abortion rights codified into law, expanded paid family and medical leave, universal free school meals, and gun safety measures. Hard, quiet work that improved lives.

Then Kamala Harris picked Walz to be her running mate in 2024, bringing us moments like this:

That election will go down in history as one of the biggest mistakes this country has ever made. I didn't know that this happened after that loss:

After the [VP] run, Tim Walz had been thinking about stepping away. In private conversations with Melissa Hortman, he confided he was considering not running again in 2026 and urged her to consider doing so. After her sudden death, he carried on.

That makes this moment at a vigil for Hortman even more poignant.

I join MN Indivisible in this:

So we close this chapter of his life by saying, while the country may remember the politician, we’ll remember the neighbors..

The guy walking his dog in the neighborhood.
The wife shopping in local stores.
The daughter working at a homeless shelter.
The son playing volleyball with joy.

The man cheering on marathoners, reading to kids, stopping for a Juicy Lucy — moments that remind us behind every public image are real people living real lives.

So this is a thank you.
For serving our country
For carrying a job that changed underneath him and not walking away.

From me, this one goes out to the Walz family today: