Tag: minneapolis

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Yes, you read that right–we’re now entering our tenth year of this song and dance.  Things nobody tells you about your thirties, partial list:  That you’ll run a weekly accessible news digest for literally all of them.  Adulting, amirite?

Several nouveau and some classic reminders still apply: we may be beginning my tenth year of journalism, but I focus on national news within my areas of expertise–which, at this point, includes (1) health news, (2) queer news, (3) news about law and government, (4) news about descent into authoritarianism, and (5) connections between news stories.  At this point, NNR summaries will merely toe-dip into other topics, if that–we are committed to a focused and sustainable format.  And, of course, for the law things you read here, I’m offering context that shouldn’t be considered legal advice. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers.  Onward to the news

        

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• Nightmare in Minneapolis Continues.   Though Trump announced that 700 ICE officers were leaving Minneapolis during this cycle, there are still thousands of officers there, and stories out of the city continue. A few outlets picked up a story about a man in ICE custody who presented to a local hospital with eight skull fractures on the front, back, and sides of his skull; the ICU staff were understandably extremely dubious when ICE officials claimed he ran into a wall.  Public teachers in the city are also suing ICE to keep them out of schools, as their presence is resulting in student disappearances and forced truancy.  And, of course, there was that U.S. Attorney who told a judge her job sucks and wanted to be held in contempt so that she could sleep.  (Needless to say, she’s not working in Minneapolis anymore.)
  
• Spotlight on ICE.  There were a lot of ICE-related stories I wasn’t able to fit into the last cycle’s roundup, and several of them have since grown extra heads. There has rightfully been a lot of attention paid to children in detention this cycle, as Liam Conejo Ramos puts the issue firmly in the public eye.  ProPublica ran a heartbreaking feature on children in Dilley Detention Center, many of whom are being illegally held for months on end; the piece details unsafe food and water, insufficient medical care, and gatekept education that only lasts an hour per day even when children do get in.  Another ICE facility in Texas was in the news because of allegations that its officers are physically and sexually assaulting underage detainees. Yet another ICE facility in Texas was in the news for deporting witnesses who saw officers murdering a fellow detainee.  And in Portland, Oregon–where ICE allegedly withdrew but locals report they are still there–a judge has restrained them from using tear gas for 14 days, because they keep assaulting tenants in nearby buildings and children at memorial services.  Unsurprisingly, there are a lot of Congressional pushes for accountability right now, and no long-term DHS funding bill has been passed despite another deadline coming up on Friday.
  

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There’s still a lot going on at DHHS, and all of it sucks.  In the wake of his special, very smart “health plan,” Trump released a drug discount website, which literally just gives people coupons and tells them to go buy medications directly from drug companies.  (Fun fact: Most of the drugs involved are also available as generics at a rate lower than the website can provide.)  Meanwhile, in a truly unforeseeable turn of events, telling people not to vaccinate their kids has led to a massive measles outbreak in South Carolina–in fact, it has become the biggest outbreak we’ve seen since measles were eliminated in 2000. There is concern that a March for Life rally in DC at the end of January may have been a superspreader event, which has prompted head of CMS Mehmet Oz (God I hate typing that phrase) to tell people to vaccinate.  This, however, has still not stopped the administration from going after COVID vaccines.

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_{‘Toddler Supermarket Tantrum,’ taken with permission from Stockcake.com}

• Establishment vs Press. Former CNN anchor and investigative journalist Don Lemon was arrested for covering a protest at a church in Minnesota earlier this month–even though a magistrate threw out the administration’s attempt to issue misdemeanor charges, Bondi got a grand jury to indict him on nebulous felony charges. For context it’s very rare for a magistrate judge to refuse to issue a misdemeanor charge. In this case, it likely happened due to overwhelming evidence that this famous news person was exercising his First Amendment right to do news things about a developing story. (It turns out, when you’re an investigative journalist covering something, you often film the whole thing, and also tell the camera that you’re there covering something.) Folks, I’m sure many of you reading already know this, but I seriously cannot overstress just how unusual and disturbing this story is. 
  
• A Gabbard in Georgia.  In other unusual and probably illegal news, the FBI conducted a search and seized records from election headquarters in Fulton, Georgia this week, claiming for the zillionth time that there was somehow election fraud even though literally nothing substantiates this claim.  That would be bad enough, but Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was also there during the search because… reasons?  Even (perhaps especially) if it’s true that Trump told her to, as she claims, it is both far beyond the Chief of Intelligence’s purview and an egregious abuse of power to have her participate in a domestic investigation like this–which is probably why Democrats Democrats demanded she explain her involvement. Meanwhile, Trump is demanding that Republicans “nationalize” voting and “the federal government should get involved.” Nobody’s really fully sure what that means, but we do know that federal involvement of any type is flagrantly unconstitutional. The running theory is that he’s referring to the SAVE Act, which both doesn’t do that and also is a terrible plan.
  
  

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_{Image unnamed and licensed to the public under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License}

Bad Bunny’s Superbowl Halftime Show.  I am genuinely not kidding when I say that Bad Bunny’s Superbowl halftime show will help you push back the abyss for a little while–it was an incredible piece of activism.  Yes, his set was entirely in Spanish, but I promise that it’s accessible and moving even if you don’t speak una palabra of the language.  (Also, Lady Gaga pops up in the middle to sing some English at you.)  It has compassion, it has joy, it even has a couple getting married (for real!) in the middle of it.  Seriously, just go watch it.  And then look up all of the cultural references that he and his consulting historian managed to squeeze in.

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So that’s what I have for you this cycle, and I’m sorry, there are still no news refunds. For making it through, you deserve this daring dear rescue and a less corrupt government.  I’m still figuring out sustainability, and I would love feedback in the National News Roundup ask box, which is there for your constructive comments.  Send me questions! Send me feedback! Send me more hours in the day!

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Minneapolis has been on most of our minds this month, for good reason. But the stories coming out of there are so big, that it can be hard to see how they interconnect.  We’re going to spend some time looking at how this cycle’s stories link together–not because it makes the stories any easier to stomach, but because it’s important to see the bigger picture.

Several nouveau and some classic reminders still apply: we may be closing out my ninth year of journalism, but I focus on national news within my areas of expertise–which, at this point, includes (1) health news, (2) queer news, (3) news about law and government, (4) news about descent into authoritarianism, and (5) connections between news stories. NNR summaries may still occasionally contain some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise–I’m a lawyer, not SAMHSA funding!–but we are moving away from this model in general, as we pioneer a more focused and sustainable format.  And, of course, for the law things you read here, I’m offering context that shouldn’t be considered legal advice. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers.  Onward to the news!         

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‘_{‘RoboKruger’ by Si2productions, released to the public domain by its creator}

• Murder Filmed in Broad Daylight. By now, most folks have likely heard about Renee Good, who was shot three times while leaving an ICE encounter in her car, and Alex Pretti, who was shot ten times after trying to help a fellow protester. Both cases are horrifying abuses of power, but it’s also important to note how the federal government is handling the aftermath.  Both Good’s and Pretti’s murders were filmed from several angles, and these videos have become widely available–making it easy for Americans to form a clear understanding of events.  Despite this, however, the federal government in both instances has issued narrative statements that wildly contradict the video footage, and in both instances there have been issues with federal officials destroying evidence. At least one FBI official resigned in protest because she was being pressured to drop a civil rights investigation into the ICE officer who killed Renee Good. The FBI instead opened an investigation into Good’s widow, because, I don’t know, reasons. (Several U.S. Attorneys resigned over the latter decision as well.) Meanwhile, in correspondence with Governor Walz, Attorney General Pam Bondi straight-up told him to hand over voter rolls if he wanted conditions to improve.  And while all this was happening, an autopsy in Texas confirmed witnesses’ reports that a detainee in ICE custody was murdered by guards. It is extremely unlikely that he was the first homicide in custody.
  
  
• Ongoing ICE Raids.   To fully understand the Minneapolis murders, it’s also important to understand the context that Renee Good and Alex Pretti were protesting in the first place. This administration began occupying Minneapolis back in December, but their behavior has escalated badly in that time–and in the wake of Renee Good’s death, things have gotten worse, not better. Reports have come in of ICE kidnapping a five-year-old and using him as bait, harassing and even detaining local Indigenous people, harassing off-duty cops, stopping and dragging citizens out of cars to detain them, shooting people during arrests, and breaking down doors to gain entry to homes they claim they can enter without a warrant.  Minnesota is suing the administration, and has already obtained a judicial order protecting peaceful protest–but Trump has responded by threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act and putting 1500 Army troops on standby. Governor Walz has mobilized the National Guard. Today we’re seeing signs that it might deescalate, but it’s still an ugly situation that is only made uglier by a second murder this week.
  

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Poison Potpourri.  There were a lot of toxic odds and ends out of DHHS in the last couple of weeks as well. First Trump announced his “health plan,” which is less a health plan and more six buzzwords in a trench coat.  We finalized our withdrawal from the World Health Organization, apparently sticking them with a large bill in the process.  The CDC both froze and unfroze about $2B in funding for SAMHSA. And the CDC was also in the news because a high-up official opined that losing measles elimination status was “the cost of doing business,” which is definitely a phrase you want to hear come out of a public health official’s mouth.

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_{‘Toddler Supermarket Tantrum,’ taken with permission from Stockcake.com}

• Manifest Fuckery (again, still).  In “somehow I am still typing this” news, the fetid orange doubled down again on taking over Greenland during this cycle.  After talks with the Danish Foreign Minister got him nowhere, he threatened to impose tariffs in an attempt to get his way. Neither the European Union nor international stock markets were amused by this development. Then just to cap everything off, he told Norway’s Prime Minister that he was doing all of this because he didn’t win a Nobel peace prize.
  
  
• Targeting Political ‘Enemies’ (Minneapolis Edition).   We’ve already discussed this administration’s horrifying occupation of Minneapolis above, but one aspect that doesn’t get as much air time is their ‘investigation’ targeting Tim Walz, the current governor of Minnesota, and Joseph Frey, the current mayor of Minneapolis–which then escalated to a grand jury for several other MN officials. They join a long list of political figures who are being threatened via federal investigation; the list also includes several Congresspeople, Federal reserve chair Jerome Powell, and New York Attorney General Leticia James.
  

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_{Image unnamed and licensed to the public under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License}

5 Calls and Zoom Calls. In the wake of the state terror above, it’s hard to know how to respond.  If you, like me, process this type of news through action, one obvious and relatively easy thing we can do is call our Congress people with specific legislative asks.  5 calls has several scripts about taking away ICE’s bloated budget, impeaching Kristi Noem, and investigating both Minneapolis murders. If you have a bit more time, you can also learn how to respond and protect community in dangerous situations with ICE through online trainings. You can also print and distribute Know Your Rights cards, or learn how to be a hotline verifier.

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So that’s what I have for you this cycle, and I’m sorry, there are still no news refunds. For making it through, you deserve this beaver eating cabbage and a less corrupt government.  I’m still figuring out sustainability, and I would love feedback in the National News Roundup ask box, which is there for your constructive comments.  Send me questions! Send me feedback! Send me responses to Out: The Community Survey!