There have been weeks that have made me dizzy, but this one felt like being inside a washing machine.
Internationally, the fallout from The Don’s bizarre speech at Davos continues to boomerang. His antics have our allies turning toward other markets. England made a trade deal with India. More countries are shedding their reluctance to deal with China and seeking deals there. America is no longer a trusted ally or trading partner. Raise tariffs on a whim to wield power? Threaten to take Greenland? Trash NATO? To paraphrase Canada’s President, Mark Carney, “This isn’t a disagreement, this is a rupture”.
On the home front, Alex Pretti was murdered in cold blood by an ICE agent. Despite the administration’s spin machine circulating egregious lies that Pretti was locked and loaded and ready to kill ICE agents, the truth is, that Pretti had already been disarmed (he had a legal permit to carry the gun-so much for the cherished second amendment!) and was held face down on the floor and then was shot ten times. TEN TIMES!
It was an execution, mafia style. The lies being spread about Pretti and Renee Good are outrageous, an attempt of The Don and his henchman to control the narrative. The good news is that the videos of what actually happened are going viral; more people are seeing the reality of what happened. Protests are increasing all over the country. There is growing pushback on the actions of Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem’s violent goon squad. Maybe we are at an inflection point that mirrors the brutal scenes of Martin Luther King marching across over the Pettis bridge when America saw on TV the brutality used against the marchers.
The Don, after belittling Pretti and accusing him of being a bad guy, softened, calling Pretti’s death “very unfortunate” and that he wanted to “ deescalate a little bit” in Minnesota. Then a few days later, after seeing a video of Pretti kicking the tires of an ICE vehicle, he took it all back, calling Pretti an “Agitator and, perhaps, insurrectionist; Alex Pretti’s stock has gone way down.” He described Pretti’s kicking of the tires as “quite a display of abuse and anger, for all to see, crazed and out of control.” His description of Pretti’s stock value says it all. Pretti’s life means nothing: he is just another transaction to manipulate. Ice continues to terrorize the citizens of Minneapolis.
And then, to show how serious they were about reducing the tension, The F.B.I showed up in the middle of the night to arrest the journalist Don Lemon. Other independent journalists were arrested as well. The pretense for the arrest was that they had violated the 1st amendment by reporting on a protest in a church and disrupted a religious service. That flies in the face of what is clear for anyone to hear in what Lemon said while recording, “We’re not part of the activists, but we’re here just reporting on them.” Arresting journalists is right out of the autocratic playbook ,and another escalation regarding what the administration is willing to do. It is meant to intimidate the free press, but hopefully, this too will backfire, as more and more people see the reality of what is really going on.
Then we have Pam Bondi playing the female version of Don Corleone in “The Godfather.” “Hey Tim Walsh, I’m gonna make you an offer you can’t refuse. We will stop terrorizing and killing people in Minneapolis if you hand over your voting rolls.”
This is scary, and augurs where we are heading. The Justice Department has demanded the private, unredacted voter rolls from every state in the country, and has sued nearly half of the states that have not yet complied — most of which are run by Democrats.
To top it all off, in Fulton County, Georgia a team of F.B.I. agents, armed with a search warrant, descended on the Fulton County elections headquarters to seize ballots, voter rolls and scanner images, with the intent of proving there was election fraud in the 2020 election. This is the state where The Don asked the Secretary of State Raffenberger to find him 12,800 votes. Now that he has access to the results in Fulton County don’t be surprised if he finds them.
The point of all of this: demanding voting rolls from states, sending in F.B.I agents to seize election material, using mafia tactics to get voters information in exchange for deescalating the actions of ICE, and continuing to challenge the results of the 2020 election, is to sow doubt and chaos in the 2026 midterms. I have no doubt that The Don and his henchman have a plan to challenge the results of the election, casting doubt about their validity, through intimidation and claims of fraud. The Don won’t stop until he gets what he wants. I’ll leave you with two quotes that should frighten us. The first is a video during the 2024 campaign where The Don states if he wins you won’t ever have to vote again.”
As you know, in our country, states have control of elections. Here’s what The Don said about that: “The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over,’” he said. “We should take over the voting, the voting in at least many — 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”
This is not a fire drill. This is the real deal. January 6th was real. If The Don has his way then our democracy dies.
The Grand Offal Party 