Yesterday, the White House published a website with a new, officially-sanctioned account of January 6. It’s an inspired work of fiction. In the Trump administration’s rewriting of history, one particular lie jumps out.
“Ashli Babbitt murdered in cold blood.”
Babbitt was killed as she charged into the Capitol as part of a violent mob. She and her fellow insurrectionists endangered hundreds of members of Congress, senators, the vice president, police, and staff. Months-long investigations by both the Department of Justice and Capitol Police cleared the officer who shot Babbitt of any wrongdoing.
Despite all of that—or perhaps because of it—the state-sponsored mythology around January 6 is now “Ashli Babbitt murdered in cold blood.”
Contrast that (unfounded) moral certainty with the way Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem responded to an ICE agent’s killing of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis earlier today—shooting the woman multiple times through the open window of her car.
“An officer of ours acted quickly and defensively, shot to protect himself and the people around him.” Noem said, just hours after the incident, accusing Good of “domestic terrorism.”
Trump, on Truth Social, affirmed that Good “viciously ran over the ICE officer, who shot her in self defense.”
Not even the pretense of an investigation. Before the day was out, the ICE agent who killed Good was absolved by none other than the president of the United States.
Trump’s preemptive acquittal of the ICE agent means that any review of his actions need to fit a narrative. If the facts of the episode do not conform exactly to the official story, do you really see this president climbing down from this tree? And as for Noem—once the president’s enforcers have blood on their hands, they cannot back down for risk of facing justice. In mafia terms, they are “made men.”
What you are looking at is the privatization of power, tossing out the rule of law in exchange for personal loyalty in the ranks. “Our guys are always right.”
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Now, it is possible that Good was engaged in the sort of civil disobedience we’ve seen pop up around ICE operations over the last year, with people blocking masked feds with their cars. That might carry the risk of arrest—getting arrested is part of what makes civil disobedience effective. In a democracy, however, nonviolent resistance can never be met with lethal force.
And “domestic terrorism?” Give me a break. That is plagiarism straight from the Putin playbook.
According to the Russian government, I am a terrorist. Really! They put me on a list.
Trump insists that he watched the video of the Minneapolis shooting. His media mouthpieces will tell you to do the same, and that the video will somehow validate their account of an attempted car-ramming. “You can see from this angle,” professional grifter Batya Ungar-Sargon tweeted alongside a clip of the incident, “that the driver drove straight at the officer.”
But no angle yet published shows anything of the sort.
This is all gaslighting. You are being instructed to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears; as Orwell put it, the party’s “final, most essential command.”
The question is: What are you going to do about it?
A lot of people will respond by hyperventilating and declaring that America is now Russia or Nazi Germany.
This isn’t Russia. Not yet.
I don’t say so for the sake of a self-congratulatory pat on the back. Things are very bad. But if we are in Russia—a real police state—then you are out of options and it’s time to shut up or pack a bag.
The aspiring authoritarians running the show are actually counting on this response. They want you to comply in advance. To self-censor. To stay home and doom scroll or tune out.
Don’t.
When you see abuses, brave the cold and protest (peacefully, of course). If your member of Congress still cares about the constitutional order, demand that they are hauling Noem and Trump’s other cronies in front of every relevant committee. Call for a review of ICE’s personnel to find out how many agents have criminal records or are involved in far-right politics. Insist that anyone running for office commit to pursuing full accountability for every complicit party. No pact of forgetting. And proactively call out ICE and military deployments in American cities for what they are: Provocations meant to make deadly showdowns inevitable.
You are being dared by liars and conmen to give up your freedoms without a fight. Call their bluff.
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I Saw How Russia Killed Media Freedom
Censorship is central to the story of Russia’s descent into KGB dictatorship.
Garry is right. The more blood these hired thugs on the hands, the more loyal they will have to become. I saw the video and there is no possible explanation other than excessive deadly force.
Horrible ICE, but where is Epstein Files