There are several young, great candidates running for federal offices, but I think this one may be my favorite! I’ve tried to help support each of them, mostly by sharing. State Sen. McMorrow does lots of great work like this, but many of the others don’t have the resources as yet. I hope everyone searches out a new candidate or two, and shares. It can only help the candidates, and definitely getting them elected will be good for we the people!
Jan. 26: Minnesota state official tells Attorney General Bondi she can’t have the state’s voter data … Senate Democrats mysteriously imbued with superpower to not vote for funding fascism … Trump declines to cheer federal heroes who saved America from Alex Pretti by murdering him … Poll: More Americans want to abolish ICE than support it …
Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon responded Sunday to Attorney General Pam Bondi’s request for the state’s voter rolls. (Uncredited / Steve Simon photo.)
On Saturday, after unidentified federal agents shot a 37-year-old, unarmed nurse to death, Attorney General Pam Bondireached out to Minnesota state officials … to pressure them.
Bondi blamed Minnesota officials for the unjustified, unprovoked violence committed by federal agents now not under investigation by Bondi’s department. (Bondi’s refusal to investigate Renee Good’s killing by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Jonathan Ross led an FBI field office supervisor to quit.)
Bondi implied that federal forces would leave — “bring an end to the chaos” — if Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) and other officials would:
Share state Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) records.
Repeal sanctuary policies barring local officials from assisting federal immigration enforcement beyond what’s legally required.
Turn over undocumented immigrants currently in Minnesota prisons or jails.
Share voter rolls with the Department of Justice.
On Sunday, Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, who has custody and jurisdiction over the voter rolls, issued a statement in response.
“The answer to Attorney General Bondi’s request is no.”
There was more, but I wanted to do that part alone cuz it’s so sexy. Here’s more:
“The law does not give the federal government the authority to obtain this private data. Minnesota is not alone in declining to disclose sensitive personal data on voters. So far, thirty-one other states have said no. …
“It is deeply disturbing that the U.S. Attorney General would make this unlawful request a part of an apparent ransom to pay for our state’s peace and security.
“More broadly, the federal government must end the unprecedented and deadly occupation of our state immediately.”
Wait til Trump officials find out that Simon’s Jewish. (Yes, Bondi is part of the White House Bible study that teaches that the Jews killed Jesus.)
(snip-MORE commentary then some more news on the page. Also you can listen at TFN’s podcast. )
The Trump administration is paving the way for mass deportations by building new prison camps and invoking the Alien Enemies Act, which was used to justify the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Motivated by nativism and white nationalism, Steven Miller and other officials are attempting to ethnically cleanse the United States, while tech and prison companies profit on lucrative government contracts and corporations continue to exploit immigrant labor. Knowing that mass deportations will inflict devastating costs, Trump has chiefly been concentrating his efforts in cities like Chicago and Denver that are governed by his political adversaries.
Nonetheless, people are getting organized. Communities across the US are mobilizing rapid response networks that can respond to raids and support those targeted by state violence. Students across the US are staging walkouts; people are holding mass demonstrations and fighting back against deportations.
If we fail to stand in solidarity with those targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) today, the same infrastructure of repression will eventually be turned against others, as well. An injury to one is an injury to all!
Do your part to melt the ICE.
Eight Things You Can Do to Stop ICE
Click on the image to download the PDF. Please print these out and distribute them in your community!
Know Your Rights—Educate Your Community
Learn your rights in interactions with ICE and law enforcement. Trump officials have complained that people knowing their rights makes it “very difficult” to carry out raids. Asserting our rights can disrupt their plans, delay their efforts, and shift the power dynamics in encounters with law enforcement. Distribute “Know Your Rights” cards and fliers in your community. Organize teams to get them into schools and workplaces. Host a training at your local community center, church, or union hall. Publicizing this information is an chance to get people together to strategize about how to accomplish the other tasks on this list.
Vet Information—Stop Rumors
Disinformation spreads quickly when people are afraid. Set up hotlines, Signal loops, and social media accounts that can vet information, verify reports of ICE activity, and circulate reliable updates. If your area already has a hotline, volunteer to help keep it running. Don’t amplify rumors; when you see them spreading, debunk them. Reports about ICE activity should include the exact time, date, and location of the sighting, the number of agents, and a visual description of their uniforms, vehicles, and badges—or better still, photographic evidence.
Organize a rapid response network to mobilize against ICE raids by recording their activity, providing support to the targeted, and organizing an immediate response. Documenting ICE activity has proven useful for understanding how they behave; it has also helped people in court. Wherever possible, block or slow their actions. In the past, crowds mobilized by rapid response networks have blockaded ICE deportation vans and protested outside ICE facilities.
You can read about some rapid response networks here and here.
Organize Mutual Aid—Support Bail Funds
ICE raids disrupt lives and break families apart. Many people are afraid to attend school or go to work for fear of being kidnapped by ICE. Organize mutual aid programs to provide support to those in hiding and to families whose breadwinners have been abducted. Start a free grocery program. Deliver meals. Connect with existing support networks and organizations to expand their efforts. Support bail funds to get arrestees out of the system as soon as possible.
Fight Criminalization—Shut out the Police
Ordinary interactions with police are one of the chief risks to those targeted by ICE. A single false criminal charge could ruin a person’s life, even if it would never hold up in court. Encourage neighbors and coworkers not to call the police. Organize neighborhood networks, conflict resolution projects, and other ways to address community needs without involving the criminal “justice” industry. Debunk false narratives about rising crime rates—these are just excuses to increase the scope of repression and the profits of those who invest in it. Explain what everyone has to gain by standing in solidarity with those who are on the receiving end of criminalization. Publicly shame police officers and other mercenaries who sell their capacity to inflict harm to the highest bidder.
Stand In Solidarity with ICE Detainees—Fight to Abolish ICE
Stand in solidarity with those locked inside ICE facilities. Support their efforts to organize. Prisoners in many ICE facilities organize hunger strikes and labor stoppages demanding better food, better conditions, access to healthcare, and legal representation. Organize to prevent the construction of new ICE facilities. Mobilize against contractors that work with ICE or supply technology to ICE. Connect the struggle against ICE to other organizing within and against prisons.
Connect Communities
These tactics will be most effective if you pursue them in community with those who are immediately at risk. For example, if you maintain a platform sharing verified sightings of ICE in your community, this will do little good unless it reaches those who need that information most. Strengthen the ties between those who are targeted by ICE and the rest of your community.
Build a Culture of Resistance against ICE and State Repression
Build a culture of resistance in your neighborhood, school, or workplace. Make the walls of your community speak with stickers and posters. Encourage non-cooperation with ICE. Strategize with others in your community about how to support those facing repression and take the offensive against those who are scapegoating the undocumented.
Every time ICE wants to attack your community, they should know that their activity will be recorded and reported, that people will converge on them wherever they show up, that there will be consequences for their actions. Every operation should cost them more resources than the last. If all of us do what we can, the accumulation of our efforts will save lives and preserve communities.
DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR if an immigration agent is knocking on the door.
DO NOT ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS from an immigration agent if they try to talk to you. You have the right to remain silent.
DO NOT SIGN ANYTHING without speaking to a lawyer first. You have the right to speak with a lawyer.
If you are outside of your home, ask the agent if you are free to leave. If they say yes, leave.
GIVE THIS TEXT TO THE AGENT. If you are inside of your home, show the text through the window or slide a card with this text under the door:
I do not wish to speak with you, answer your questions, or sign or hand you any documents based on my 5th Amendment rights under the United States Constitution. I do not give you permission to enter my home based on my 4th Amendment rights under the United States Constitution unless you have a warrant to enter, signed by a judge or magistrate with my name on it that you slide under the door. I do not give you permission to search any of my belongings based on my 4th Amendment rights. I choose to exercise my constitutional rights.
ICE agents often carry administrative rather than judicial warrants. They would like you to think that these are the same, but they are not. If the agent does not have a judicial warrant with all the correct information for the specific person they are looking to detain, they do not have authority to enter private areas without consent, including private areas at a workplace. Talk with your coworkers so that everyone understands which areas are public and private; put up signs and keep doors closed. Create a policy on how to respond if ICE comes to your place of work. You can learn more about how to deal with workplace raids here.
No doubt we’ve all seen that AG Bondi has contacted Gov. Waltz stating that if he will forward the MN voter rolls to her, the federal government violence will stop in MN. Last I knew, that offer was declined. Meanwhile, they’re still in MN, and now they’re raiding in Maine (I’m certain their Republican US Senator is deeply concerned, though not concerned enough to demand a turnaround.) Anyway, below are some links and snippets about preparation. The fact is that immigration enforcement has been around in every state for years, but they mostly haven’t been Gestapo-awful, or not at the massive numbers of people abused and killed, as they are currently. So, it isn’t as if things can’t happen instantaneously anywhere. If we still haven’t begun building local community, it’s definitely time. Aside from making sure we can take care of our neighbors and vice-versa, here are some good guidelines for dealing with our reality. We can do this. There is a place for everyone.
snippet: Today, after a year of rapid, large-scale mobilizing, resistance to rogue immigration agents is seeing its own set of commandments emerge. From compiling strategies from across the United States, 10 Rules of Resistance for #ICEOut can be identified. Taken as a whole, they offer all of us a robust approach to denying ICE the basic necessities of their operation.
10 Rules of Resistance for #ICEOut
No silence.
No selling.
No service.
No hotel rooms.
No entry.
No informing.
No looking away.
No collaboration.
No transporting.
No detention centers.
(You can add to this list, of course. There’s no limit to the ways we can resist.)
Nonviolent movements succeed by strategically pressuring the pillars of support for an injustice to withhold or withdraw things like information, cooperation, funding, labor and more. These 10 Rules of Resistance for #ICEOut offer ways to deny immigration agencies the key resources they need to function effectively. ICE cannot function without detention centers, transportation of detainees, access to businesses and properties, staging areas in parking lots, surveillance, telecommunication, recruitment ads, deliveries, or even quiet and uninterrupted sleep at hotels. (snip-more at link-the title above)
General strikes can have a tremendous impact, but to succeed they require an organized majority, networks of solidarity and resources to weather repression.
The call is coming from a rapidly growing coalition that includes the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1005, Service Employees International Union Local 26, UNITE HERE Local 17, Communications Workers of America Local 7250, the Saint Paul Federation of Educators, the Minneapolis Federation of Educators, the Minnesota AFL-CIO, Sunrise Movement, and grassroots groups like Tending the Soil, among others.
That breadth matters — it’s not just a tiny group but an array of organized, powerful entities.
The action carries momentum. It follows the extreme violence carried out by ICE and other immigration agents in Minnesota — and the courageous, sustained pushback by Minnesotans who have stepped in to protect one another. The Jan. 23 one-day economic blackout is not the only tactic on the table. It sits alongside legal challenges, corporate pressure campaigns targeting ICE enablers, mutual aid and direct services, physical interventions, and more.
This is how real movements tend to move: not in a straight line, but through overlapping experiments. (snip-see the rest by clicking the title above)
The movement for justice and democracy is growing and has displayed significant political clout: mobilizing unprecedented millions in mass protest, resisting ICE attacks in Minneapolis and other cities, turning interim electoral outcomes against MAGA policies, and building pressure for National Guard withdrawals. Trump’s ratings have slumped to the lowest level of his second term. A recent poll shows a majority of Americans opposed to ICE’s aggressive tactics.
Now we are at a critical juncture, a moment of escalating risk, but also opportunity for political gain. Protests and protective actions have surged in Minneapolis, especially following the murder of Renee Nicole Good. Citizens and public officials in Minneapolis have condemned the brutality of ICE and Border Patrol operations and their blatant acts of racial and ethnic profiling. They are demanding the withdrawal of federal forces and a halt to the de facto military siege of city neighborhoods.
Very interesting report. Seems that Noem and her boyfriend wanted wide spread round ups to create a spectacle because they felt it would look good for them on TV. Others wanted to prioritize criminals which is what tRump kept saying. Let’s be clear, Noem and that crew are die hard racists who want to terrorize nonwhite people and make sure that everyone understands that in their minds it is a white country with white people in charge. They don’t see nonwhite people and immigrants as humans. Hugs
Bash asks him straight out if Pretti had brandished his gun and Gregory Bovino dodges the question instead falling back to the talking points that they have all decided looks good for them. They claim he was interfering, nope he was filming them with his phone. They did not like that and attacked him for doing it. They killed a person in anger for that person filming their illegal actions. They want to be called police and pretend they have police powers but watch the videos again, one ICE thug lunges at a woman knocking her back and down for no reason except he wanted to feel tough and Pretti was trying to help her when another ICE thug peeper sprays him in the face at point blank range. Remember that at that close it can stop the breathing. Then they dog pile on him beating him while on officer steals his lawful gun. Then they shoot him repeatedly. Bovino wants to pretend that anyone filming ICE is interfering. He keeps saying ICE police and police action but that is not true ICE has no police powers. It is all lies to protect their need to remove nonwhites while he keeps saying they were there for a violent offender but they don’t say what offender, and then Bovino calls him a suspect and saying that just being there he was interfering. It makes no sense what he is saying. Well worth her questioning him to see how he shifts and lies. They want people to disappear and obey like, the victim he claims are the ICE thugs there. Damn. And they don’t want people to believe their eyes. Hugs
Scottie's Playtime 