January 13, 2026

Great Moments in Presidential* History. On January 13, 2026, Donald Trump became the first sitting president known to have flipped the bird and mouthed "Fuck you" at a constituent. ~~~

~~~ TMZ: "47 toured the Ford F-150 plant at the Detroit Economic Club before giving a speech ... while walking the factory floor on his tour, someone began shouting at Trump. It's hard to make out the full sentence shouted at Trump, but it seems to have included the words 'pedophile protector.' The angry worker is obviously referencing Trump's association with late convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein ... and the Dept. of Justice's slow release of the infamous Epstein Files. In true presidential fashion, Trump responds by yelling down at the guy ... pretty clearly saying 'F*** you' before flipping him the bald eagle.... White House Communications Director Steven Cheung tells TMZ ... 'A lunatic was wildly screaming expletives in a complete fit of rage, and the President gave an appropriate and unambiguous response.'"

Clay Risen of the New York Times: “Claudette Colvin, whose refusal in 1955 to give up her seat to a white woman on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Ala., came months before it was overshadowed by a similar act of resistance in the same city by Rosa Parks, a historic moment that helped galvanize the civil rights movement, died on Tuesday in Texas. She was 86.... As a teenager in Alabama, Ms. Colvin went on to become a star witness in a landmark anti-segregation lawsuit whose successful outcome was affirmed by the United States Supreme Court.”

Steve Thompson of the Washington Post: “The Justice Department responded defiantly Tuesday to an order from a federal judge directing Lindsey Halligan to explain why she continues to use the title U.S. attorney in Virginia despite another judge’s ruling that her appointment was unconstitutional. In a response signed by Halligan, the Justice Department opposed U.S. District Judge David Novak, who demanded last week that Halligan account for why she continues to use the U.S. attorney title in court filings. Novak, a Richmond judge who Trump nominated to the bench in 2019, suggested Halligan’s use of the title could amount to false or misleading statements.... The response, which accuses Novak of making 'rudimentary' legal errors and missing 'elementary' legal principles, is written in a derisive tone unusual for a government lawyer addressing a federal judge.” 

     ~~~ Marie: That's because, as we learned Tuesday from Donald Trump's reaction to a Ford worker, this is the Fuck-You Administration. Check the watermark on the response; it may be what TMZ so delicately calls “a bald eagle.” You just can't match the spunk of a third-runner-up in a state beauty pageant.

Annie Karni of the New York Times: “Bill and Hillary Clinton refused on Tuesday to testify in the House’s Jeffrey Epstein investigation, escalating a monthslong battle with its Republican leader, Representative James R. Comer of Kentucky, who quickly said he would take steps to hold them in contempt of Congress.... The Clintons wrote ... a lengthy[, scorching] letter to Mr. Comer, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee..., promising to fight [him] on the issue for as long as it took.... [They also sent] an eight-page legal letter laying out why they considered the subpoenas 'invalid and legally unenforceable.'... Mr. Comer’s relentless efforts to force them to testify reflect his overall ... [attempt] to deflect focus from ... [Donald] Trump’s ties to the convicted sex offender.... Instead, he has worked to shift the spotlight onto prominent Democrats....” The link to the article is a gift link. The links to the letters are not. ~~~

     ~~~ Politico's story is here. President & Secretary Clinton have published their four-page letter on X. Politico's link to the Clintons' legal letter, which is not firewalled, is here. 

⭐Ernesto Londoño of the New York Times: “Six federal prosecutors in Minnesota resigned on Tuesday over the Justice Department’s push to investigate the widow of a woman killed by an ICE agent and the department’s reluctance to investigate the shooter.... Joseph H. Thompson, who was second in command at the U.S. attorney’s office and oversaw a sprawling fraud investigation that has roiled Minnesota’s political landscape, was among those who quit on Tuesday.... Mr. Thompson’s resignation came after senior Justice Department officials pressed for a criminal investigation into the actions of the widow of Renee Nicole Good, the Minneapolis woman killed by an ICE agent.... Mr. Thompson, 47, a career prosecutor, objected to that approach, as well as to the Justice Department’s refusal to include state officials in investigating whether the shooting itself was lawful....” The link appears to be a gift link version of a link Akhilleus provided in today's Comments. (The link in the Comments doesn't work because of an extraneous bit of code that got latched onto it. The one should work whether or not you need the "gift extension.") ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Say, you know how Trump & ICE Barbie and all are so upset with Minnesota because of all the fraud that they are withholding allocated federal funds (until the courts say they can't) and sending in squads-full of fraud investigators and deploying thousands of ICE agents & generally turning Minnesota upside down? Well, there's this from Londoño's report: 

“The Minneapolis police chief, Brian O’Hara, said in an interview that Mr. Thompson’s resignation dealt a major blow to efforts to root out rampant theft from state agencies. The fraud cases, which involve schemes to cheat safety net programs, were the chief reason the Trump administration cited for its immigration crackdown in the state. The vast majority of defendants charged in the cases are American citizens of Somali origin. 'When you lose the leader responsible for making the fraud cases, it tells you this isn’t really about prosecuting fraud,' Mr. O’Hara said.”

Adam Nichols of the Raw Story: "Leaked documents have revealed terror among ICE agents working in Minneapolis after the fatal shooting of U.S. citizen Renee Good last week — and some are laying blame with their boss [Kristi Noem].... A high-level career official at Homeland Security headquarters in Washington..., [who expressed a need for de-escalation, said,] '"There is genuine fear that indeed ICE's heavy-handedness and the rhetoric from Washington is more creating a condition where the officers' lives are in danger rather than the other way around.'" Thanks to RAS for the link. ~~~

     ~~~  Marie: Read the DHS career official's remark again. What's wrong with it? RAS writes, 

Do you think the official realized what he said at the end there? They are supposed to fear us, not us fearing them. It is so ingrained and natural to them that I don't think they could wrap their heads around the idea that the civilian public should not in fact be fearing that DHS officers will harm or murder people. Their original purpose was to keep people safe, not instill fear in them.... Good luck on that 'deescalation'.

     ~~~ I'll go even further than RAS did. When you parse what the "high-level" DHS official said, you find that s/he juxtaposed (1) "the officers' lives" -- which s/he said were"in danger" -- against (2) "the other way around." The "other way around" then would be "ordinary people's lives ... in danger." That is, "a high-level career official at Homeland Security" said it is a bad thing to endanger DHS officers (I'll agree with that), but it is either good or acceptable to endanger the lives of ordinary people. This official, despite being critical of "ICE's heavy-handedness" and despite wanting to "de-escalate" tensions with the public, still seems to think that endangering -- i.e., harming or even killing -- civilians is acceptable. I guess this is as reasonable as they get at DHS. It's been a crap department since it was formed during Bush II's administration, given a Nazi-esque name -- "homeland" (trans. "das Vaterland") -- and a mission to round up terrorists. Now, the posture of the expanded DHS is that we're all terrorists, and they're not. 

~~~~~~~~~~

RAS found this "Trump Action Tracker" that purports to record all “actions, statements, and plans of President Trump and his administration that echo those of authoritarian regimes and may pose a threat to American democracy.” The action tracker covers only this term. The tracker is kept up-to-date, so it's worth checking back. MB: When I checked it out Monday morning, the tracker had recorded 2210 actions; as of Monday evening, it was up to 2214 actions. Each action is described, source-linked and dated. ~~~

Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: “For the last decade there’s been a debate, among people who don’t like Donald Trump, about whether he’s a fascist. The argument that he isn’t often hinges on two things. First, when Trump first came to power, he lacked a street-fighting force like Benito Mussolini’s Blackshirts.... Second, Trump didn’t pursue campaigns of imperial expansion, which some scholars view as intrinsic to fascism.... It’s striking how much the arguments that Trump is not a fascist have suffered in just the first few days of this year, in which we’ve plunged to new depths of national madness.” 

“A Breathtaking Week of Pure Trump Id.” Jonathan Lemire of the Atlantic: “Donald Trump has been emboldened. The president and his advisers believe that the strike [on Venezuela] both reignited his political momentum and underscored the lack of concrete limits on his ability to wield power at home and abroad.... His poll numbers are still low.... The MAGA base has been fractured, and some Republicans have objected to his plans, while many more quietly worry that the president is ignoring the economic issues that will likely decide this year’s midterm elections. But Trump simply doesn’t care.” The link is a gift link.

⭐Donald & Pete Pile Another War Crime upon Other War Crimes. Or Just Mass Murder. Charlie Savage, et al., of the New York Times: “The Pentagon used a secret aircraft painted to look like a civilian plane in its first attack on a boat that the Trump administration said was smuggling drugs, killing 11 people last September, according to officials briefed on the matter. The aircraft also carried its munitions inside the fuselage, rather than visibly under its wings, they said. The nonmilitary appearance is significant, according to legal specialists, because the administration has argued its lethal boat attacks are lawful — not murders — because ... [Donald] Trump 'determined' the United States is in an armed conflict with drug cartels. But the laws of armed conflict prohibit combatants from feigning civilian status to fool adversaries into dropping their guard, then attacking and killing them. That is a war crime called 'perfidy.'... 

“The aircraft swooped in low enough for the people aboard the boat to see it, according to officials who have seen or been briefed on surveillance video from the attack. The boat had turned back toward Venezuela, apparently after seeing the plane, before the first strike.... Two survivors of the initial attack later appeared to wave at the aircraft after clambering aboard an overturned piece of the hull, before the military killed them in a follow-up strike that also sank the wreckage.... The military has since switched to using recognizably military aircraft for boat strikes.... The Pentagon insisted in a statement that its arsenal has undergone legal review for compliance with the laws of armed conflict.” Update. New link appears to be a gift link. A derivative Independent report is here.

Back to the 1980s. Anton Troianovski of the New York Times: “... Mr. Trump’s grand plans for Venezuelan oil have already run headlong into reality, starting with the apparent reluctance of the major American oil companies to plunge immediately into Venezuela and the related fact that, unlike Russia or Saudi Arabia, the United States does not have a national oil company ready to do the government’s bidding. And he is waging his campaign for greater control of world oil markets in an era in which the United States is already less sensitive to shocks in the global oil supply than it was in decades past, when Mr. Trump honed his 'take the oil' mentality.... The view of oil as a driving force in geopolitics has been fixed in Mr. Trump’s mind since at least the 1980s.” See also Paul Krugman's take, also linked yesterday.

Barak Ravid of Axios: Donald "Trump is leaning toward striking Iran to punish the regime for killing protesters, but he hasn't made a final decision and is exploring Iranian proposals for negotiations, a White House official with direct knowledge told Axios.... While Trump threatened the Iranian regime with strikes if protesters were killed, it's far from clear that U.S. bombs will turn the tide in Tehran. Trump is expected to discuss options in a meeting with his top national security team on Tuesday." ~~~  

~~~~ Doug Palmer of Politico: “... Donald Trump threatened Monday to impose a 25 percent tariff on 'any country'  doing business with Iran, potentially affecting U.S. trade with China, India, the United Arab Emirates, the European Union and others. 'Effective immediately, any Country doing business with the Islamic Republic of Iran will pay a Tariff of 25% on any and all business being done with the United States of America,' Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. 'This Order is final and conclusive. Thank you for your attention to this matter!'”

This Danish political scientist outlines the history of U.S. interest in acquiring Greenland and why Donald Trump has threatened Greenland, Denmark & NATO over the matter:

~~~ Andrew Solender of Axios: "A House Republican on Monday introduced legislation that would give ... [Donald] Trump the authority to annex Greenland and turn it into a U.S. state.... Rep. Randy Fine, a staunch Trump loyalist from Florida, introduced the two-page bill, called the Greenland Annexation and Statehood Act.... The bill is an extreme long-shot, but it serves as a stark display of Republicans' eagerness to prove their loyalty to the president as he muses publicly about acquiring the island territory by force." ~~~

    ~~~ On the Other Hand.... Andrew Solender of Axios: "A House Democrat is introducing legislation that would block ... [Donald] Trump from making good on his threats to either purchase Greenland or take it by force.... Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) is introducing the "Greenland Sovereignty Protection Act," a three-page bill that would block federal funds from being used to finance Trump's Greenland ambitions. The bill prohibits funds from being used to facilitate 'the invasion, annexation, purchase, or other form of acquisition of Greenland' by the U.S. government. It would also prevent funding for a surge of U.S. troops to the island or a public influence campaigns aimed at swaying the Greenlandic people to support a U.S. takeover." ~~~

~~~ AND. Nicholas Wu of Politico: “A bipartisan group of lawmakers is introducing legislation to prevent ... Donald Trump from taking action to invade a NATO country or territory, like Greenland. 'This is about our fundamental shared goals and our fundamental security, not just not just in Europe, but in the United States itself,' said Rep. Bill Keating (D-Mass.), who’s leading the legislation along with retiring centrist Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.). The lawmakers are starting to round up support for the legislation Monday night and hope more Republicans will join the effort, Keating said.... Trump officials are openly weighing options including military force to take Greenland....”

Aimee Picchi of CBS News: "Three former chairs of the Federal Reserve and other top former economic officials are rebuking the Department of Justice for launching an investigation into Fed Chair Jerome Powell, saying the probe will undermine the central bank's independence and hurt the U.S. economy. The statement, posted on Substack on Monday, was signed by former Fed Chairs Janet Yellen, Ben Bernanke and Alan Greenspan, as well as by former Treasury Secretaries Timothy Geithner, Jacob Lew, Henry Paulson and Robert Rubin. 'The reported criminal inquiry into Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell is an unprecedented attempt to use prosecutorial attacks to undermine that independence,' the signers of the statement said. 'This is how monetary policy is made in emerging markets with weak institutions, with highly negative consequences for inflation and the functioning of their economies more broadly.'" ~~~

~~~ Claire Jones & Olaf Storbeck of the Financial Times: “Global central bank chiefs said they 'stand in full solidarity' with Jay Powell, in an unprecedented show of support after US authorities opened a criminal investigation into the Federal Reserve chair.... “The independence of central banks is a cornerstone of price, financial and economic stability in the interest of the citizens that we serve,' the statement said. The signatories included European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde, Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey, Bank of Canada chief Tiff Macklem and Pablo Hernández de Cos, the general manager of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). Lagarde signed on behalf of the ECB and also the 21 national central banks in the euro area.” ~~~

~~~ Jason Furman of the New York Times: “Mr. Trump’s attack on the Fed is a breathtaking departure from precedent, a dangerous and scary power grab, but it’s already backfiring. If anything, this latest episode has weakened his ability to bend the institution to his will, at least in the short run. It definitely increases the chance that Mr. Powell, whose term as chair ends in May, but whose appointment as a board member does not, will remain at the Fed longer than he might otherwise have. It will also raise the hurdle for whoever Mr. Trump nominates as the next Fed chair. And it will make other members of that body a lot less likely to go along with the president’s agenda.” The link appears to be a gift link. ~~~

⭐~~~ Paul Krugman sees the bigger picture: "Surely nobody at the now completely corrupt Department of Justice really believes that Powell has committed any crimes, other than the crime of not doing Donald Trump’s bidding. This is all about intimidation, not just of Powell, but of everyone at the Fed.... This isn’t just about the Fed. It’s part of a broader assault on anyone who doesn’t go along with Trump’s agenda. At the top of this post I’ve put Powell’s picture next to that of Renee Nicole Good, who was killed by ICE last week, because the attack on Powell and Good’s murder are part of the same story: Trump and his minions have zero tolerance for dissent. No matter who you are, if you stand up to them they will try to ruin your life any way they can, up to and including shooting you in the face." 

     ~~~ Krugman goes on to elaborate on why the Fed's independence is crucial. He finishes, "If top Trump officials like Scott Bessent and Kevin Hassett had any integrity, they would have threatened to resign en masse as soon as the criminal investigation of Powell was revealed. But they don’t and they didn’t. No musical coda today. I’m not in the mood." ~~~

~~~ BTW, here's a little-known fact RAS dug up yesterday. Ann Saphir of Reuters (July 2025): "... Donald Trump's appointees to a Washington project review board pushed the Federal Reserve five years ago to use more marble for a renovation project at its headquarters campus that the White House is now using as the basis for attacks on central bank Chair Jerome Powell, saying cost overruns and 'ostentatious' features like the premium marble the Fed incorporated into its final design are evidence of mismanagement by the Fed chief." RAS sez, "I hope Jeanine [Pirro, who is 'investigating' Powell,] doesn't have to arrest her boss, that might get awkward."

As you read the following stories or watch the clips, bear in mind that a principal reason for Trump's popularity has been, for the past ten-plus years, his racist anti-immigrant stance: ~~~ 

If at First You Don't Succeed, Make It Worse. Trump's War on Minnesota Escalates. Hamed Aleaziz & Madeleine Ngo of the New York Times: “The Trump administration is sending roughly 1,000 more immigration officers to Minnesota, expanding its law enforcement surge in the state and potentially escalating already tense relations between federal and local officials in Minneapolis. The Customs and Border Protection officers are joining 2,000 other officers and agents at the Department of Homeland Security who have been deployed to the Minneapolis-St. Paul region recently.... The Trump administration has intensified its focus on Minnesota in recent weeks, saying it was “unleashing a relentless assault” on the state to root out fraud. Federal officials have also vowed to ramp up enforcement operations in other Democratic-led states including California and New York.”

Luke Broadwater & Katie Rogers of the New York Times: Donald “Trump has added another justification for the fatal shooting of Renee Good by an ICE agent in Minnesota: She behaved badly. 'At a very minimum, that woman was very, very disrespectful to law enforcement,' Mr. Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday evening.... While Mr. Trump still says the ICE agent was acting in self-defense, his latest comments suggest that disrespecting law enforcement could help to justify the killing. The comments raise serious questions about the use of force by those carrying out Mr. Trump’s crackdown on immigration, and they underscore the extent to which Mr. Trump’s impulse is to condemn anything done by his critics and to defend the actions of his supporters.” MB: Take a look at the video below of the incident at the gas station, and ask yourself whether you think those agents merit "respect." By Trump's standards, his gestapo would be justified to mow down millions of us.

FBI Ramps Up Blame-the-Victim Tactic. Alan Feuer, et al., of the New York Times: “Federal investigators assigned to the fatal shooting of a 37-year-old Minneapolis woman are looking into her possible connections to activist groups protesting the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement, in addition to the actions of the federal agent who killed her, people familiar with the situation said. It seems increasingly unlikely that the agent who fired three times at the unarmed woman, Renee Nicole Good, will face criminal charges, although that could change as investigators collect new evidence, the people added.... The decision by the F.B.I. and the Justice Department to scrutinize Ms. Good’s activities and her potential connections to local activists is in line with the White House’s strategy of deflecting blame for the shooting away from federal law enforcement and toward opponents they have described as domestic terrorists, often without providing evidence.... On Sunday..., [Donald] Trump described Ms. Good and her wife, Becca Good, as being 'professional agitators,' adding that the authorities would 'find out who’s paying for it.' He offered no evidence to support his claims.” ~~~

~~~ Carol Leonnig & Ken Dilanian of MS NOW: "At least four leaders of a Justice Department unit that investigates police killings have resigned in protest over the administration’s handling of the fatal shooting of a motorist in Minneapolis by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer.... Top leaders of the criminal section of the Civil Rights Division have left their jobs to register their frustration with the department after the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon decided not to investigate the ICE officer’s fatal shooting of Renee Good last week. The criminal section of the division would normally investigate any fatal shooting by a law enforcement officer and specializes in probing potential or alleged abuse or improper use of force by law enforcement. The departures includ[e] that of the chief of the section, as well as the principal deputy chief, deputy chief and acting deputy chief...."

Jacqueline Sweet of the Intercept: “After a U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis last week, rival GoFundMe campaigns emerged. One raised $1.5 million for the family of the slain mother of three. Another has pulled in nearly half a million dollars for Jonathan Ross — the ICE agent who killed her. Among the donors to the Ross GoFundMe was billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, who shared a post about the fundraiser on Saturday and donated $10,000. The fundraising campaign for Ross was created by an account using the name of Clyde Emmons, of Michigan. Other online accounts, linked to the GoFundMe and bearing the same name, posted white supremacist imagery and called Good 'a stupod bitch who got what she deserved.... GoFundMe is investigating the campaign, the company told The Intercept in a statement.” ~~~

~~~ Daniel Hampton of the Raw Story: "Conservative podcaster Liz Collin wasted no time promoting multiple fundraisers for Ross. One GoFundMe, launched by Clyde Emmons of Mount Forest, Michigan, featured brutal language.... 'The stupod (sic) c---s want to make a go fund me for the stupod b----that got what she deserved,' Emmons wrote on Facebook, calling Ross the 'ICE officer who did his job.'... Collin promoted a second fundraiser as the 'preferred method' to support Ross. That fundraiser's creator called Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey an 'anti-American' traitor 'who is Jewish.'" MB: Note to Hampton: a person who criticizes an elected official while pointing out that he is Jewish -- when his religion & ethnicity have nothing to do with the story -- is not a "conservative"; she's an antisemite. 

Marie: Watch a gang of ICE goons physically attack, detain & remove a man who was doing nothing more than videographing ICE activities. At least two of the masked agents have drawn their guns on the man and on other innocent bystanders. Ten years ago, no one would have guessed that a POTUS* would make the U.S. such a dangerous country, that he would sic armed, masked violent thugs on ordinary citizens, that none of us is safe from this vast presidential goon squad. But here we are. According to the source where I originally saw this video, the detained man was later released without being formally arrested -- because he didn't violate any law. If you have acquaintances who think what ICE is doing is all hunky-dory, you might e-mail them this video and ask them if this is the way they want their government to treat them: ~~~

 

~~~ AND watch these incidents that Rachel Maddow highlighted Monday night: 

digby on MAGA misogyny: "Then they came for the wine moms…. Obviously, they’re misogynists (many of them outright incels) who resent women who dare to defy them just as much as they resent people of color and immigrants of all stripes. It’s just that they used to generally keep their violence against them behind closed doors. The masks and the costumes and the get-out-of-jail-free card dispensed by the president of the United States have given them permission to let it all hang out." Thanks to RAS for the link. ~~~

~~~⭐David Frum of the Atlantic: “... J. D. Vance has made himself the lead defender of the killing in Minnesota.... For MAGA America, ICE is an instrument for cleansing violence. Visit ICE social-media accounts and you’ll see, again and again, videos of armed force against unarmed individuals, against a soundtrack of pumping music.... ICE is violence-prone in part because the agency has lowered its training standards and ditched much of its background vetting to meet the president’s grandiose deportation targets. But more fundamentally, ICE is violence-prone because its main purpose has become theatrical. Under present leadership, ICE is less a law-enforcement agency than it is a content creator.... By coming so vociferously to the shooter’s defense, Vance full-throatedly committed himself to the MAGA mission of enforcing respect by any means necessary. Because there’s always such a strong whiff of cynical calculation and inauthenticity about Vance, he has to say more and go further than many natural MAGA personalities do.” The link is a gift link. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Frum's analysis of JayDee's motivations is consistent with digby's insights, linked above, and with a comment I made January 9 on why Jonathan Ross, the murderer of Renee Good, was videographing her in the moments before he shot her three times. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I had forgotten the details of one horrifying incident Frum recounts: “Border Patrol agents have also shot at least three people who were simply observing or documenting immigration raids, including a 30-year-old American woman in Chicago, at whom an agent shouted 'Do something, bitch' before opening fire with an assault rifle. She was hit five times but somehow survived.” One of the reasons these murders and attempted murders don't get enough press attention is that ICE agents and top DHS officials routinely lie about them, so that the heinous acts are “old news” before some approximation of the truth comes out. In the case Frum cites, here's the lede on a Reuters story that came our four days after the attempted murder: “A woman who was shot multiple times by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents did not ram them with her car and had her weapon stored in her purse at the time of the incident, according to her lawyer, contradicting accounts by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that described the shooting as an act of self-defense.” Bodycam footage obtained from another ICE agent backed up the victim's lawyer's account.

Rebecca Santana, et al., of the AP: “Days of demonstrations against immigration agents left Minnesota tense on Tuesday, a day after federal authorities used tear gas to break up crowds of whistle-blowing activists and state and local leaders sued to fight the enforcement surge that led to the fatal shooting of a Minneapolis woman. Confrontations between federal agents and protesters stretched throughout the day and across multiple cities on Monday. Agents fired tear gas in Minneapolis as a crowd gathered around immigration officers questioning a man, while to the northwest in St. Cloud hundreds of people protested outside a strip of Somali-run businesses after ICE officers arrived. Later that night confrontations erupted between protesters and officers guarding the federal building being used as a base for the Twin Cities crackdown.” ~~~

~~~ Mitch Smith of the New York Times: “State and city officials in Minnesota and Illinois filed federal lawsuits against the Trump administration on Monday, claiming that the mass deployment of immigration agents to the Minneapolis and Chicago regions violated the U.S. Constitution and infringed on states’ rights. Illinois asked a judge to block U.S. Customs and Border Protection 'from conducting civil immigration enforcement' in the state without 'express congressional authorization.' The Minnesota lawsuit asked a judge to block the federal government from 'implementing the unprecedented surge in Minnesota.' The lawsuits, filed separately in U.S. District Courts in the two Democratic-led states, came a week into a stepped-up immigration enforcement blitz in Minnesota and following a highly visible campaign in Chicago in recent months. Both the Illinois and Minnesota lawsuits claimed that the federal deployments violated state sovereignty under the Constitution’s 10th Amendment.” The link appears to be a gift link. ~~~

     ~~~ Here's a Politico story on the Minnesota suit. Here's Block Club Chicago's report on the Illinois suit. 

Anna Griffin of the New York Times: “The man shot by U.S. Border Patrol officers last week in Portland, Ore., has been charged with trying to injure them with his pickup truck, the Justice Department said Monday, though so far investigators have not been able to find any surveillance footage that captured the shooting. Federal prosecutors said that Luis Nino-Moncada, 33, who was shot in the arm on Thursday, was being held in the Multnomah County Detention Center in Portland on charges of aggravated assault of a federal officer with a dangerous or deadly weapon. He was also charged with damaging federal property at a cost in excess of $1,000.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I wonder if the DOJ will be bringing charges against the ICE officer who rammed the car of U.S. citizen Christian Molina in Minnesota who made the mistake of "making eye contact" with an ICE agent. (See Rachel Maddow video embedded above.) 

Devlin Barrett & Alan Feuer of the New York Times: “A senior federal prosecutor in Virginia was fired after a disagreement about whether he would take charge of the Trump administration’s effort to reindict James B. Comey, according to multiple people.... The dismissal of the prosecutor, Robert K. McBride, is the latest fallout in the Justice Department over ... [Donald] Trump’s effort to punish Mr. Comey, the former F.B.I. director and his longtime nemesis, whom the president blames for past investigations of his conduct. Mr. McBride had been in the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia for only a couple of months, temporarily serving as the top deputy to Lindsey Halligan after more than a decade as a federal prosecutor in Kentucky. Mr. Trump selected Ms. Halligan as the U.S. attorney after her predecessor resisted bringing charges against Mr. Comey, saying the evidence was not sufficient to warrant doing so.” MB: The reason for McBride's firing is in dispute. Just more derailment of Trump's retribution train. Here's an MS NOW story on McBride's firing.

Reggie Ugwu of the New York Times: “Dan Bongino, the right-wing pundit who stepped down as the deputy director of the F.B.I. this month, announced on Monday that he would restart his popular podcast. The podcast ... will resume broadcasting on Feb. 2, nearly a year after it ceased production while Bongino served a tumultuous stint in the nation’s top law enforcement agency. The revived version of the podcast will stream live daily on Rumble, the conservative video network, with an audio version distributed to podcast platforms....  As deputy director [of the F.B.I.]..., he took part in investigations that debunked claims he had made in his career as a commentator.... Bongino also clashed with Pam Bondi, who, as the attorney general, oversees the F.B.I., over her handling of files related to the Epstein case. And his frequent, incendiary posts on social media alienated some rank-and-file personnel at an agency with a legacy of quiet professionalism.”

Rebecca O'Brien of the New York Times: “The secretary of labor’s chief of staff and deputy chief of staff were placed on administrative leave on Monday, as the Labor Department’s watchdog begins investigating allegations of professional misconduct involving the secretary.... The move to place the two officials on leave followed a report by The New York Post on Friday that said a formal complaint had been filed against Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer with the department’s inspector general’s office, accusing her of abusing her office and of having an affair with a subordinate. Ms. Chavez-DeRemer’s chief of staff, Jihun Han, and deputy chief of staff, Rebecca Wright, were also named in the complaint, The Post reported. According to The Post, the complaint accused Ms. Chavez-DeRemer of committing 'travel fraud' by having Mr. Han and Ms. Wright create trips for the secretary where she could spend personal time with friends and family. The complaint also accused Ms. Chavez-DeRemer, who is married, of having an 'inappropriate' relationship with a subordinate, The Post said.”

Corporate Profits, Sí; People's Lives, No. Maxine Joselow of the New York Times: “For decades, the Environmental Protection Agency has calculated the health benefits of reducing air pollution, using the cost estimates of avoided asthma attacks and premature deaths to justify clean-air rules. Not anymore. Under ... [Donald] Trump, the E.P.A. plans to stop tallying gains from the health benefits caused by curbing two of the most widespread deadly air pollutants, fine particulate matter and ozone, when regulating industry, according to internal agency emails and documents reviewed by The New York Times. It’s a seismic shift that runs counter to the E.P.A.’s mission statement, which says the agency’s core responsibility is to protect human health and the environment, environmental law experts said. The change could make it easier to repeal limits on these pollutants from coal-burning power plants, oil refineries, steel mills and other industrial facilities across the country, the emails and documents show. That would most likely lower costs for companies while resulting in dirtier air.” Thanks to RAS for this gift link. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Remember when we excoriated Mitt Romney for saying, "Corporations are people, my friend"? Well, that turns out to be a relatively enlightened view of an inanimate "thing." Trump and his gang place corporations so far above people that they find it's perfectly all right to sicken and kill untold number of Americans in service of these inanimate things.

Brad Plumer of the New York Times: “A federal judge on Monday ruled that the Trump administration’s decision to terminate millions of dollars in clean-energy grants last fall was 'unlawful' because the cuts primarily targeted Democratic-led states. In his ruling, Judge Amit P. Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia wrote that the cancellation of seven Biden-era grants for clean-energy projects, worth some $27.5 million, violated the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection of the laws. 'The terminated grants had one glaring commonality: All the awardees (but one) were based in states whose majority of citizens casting votes did not support President Trump in the 2024 election,' Judge Mehta wrote.... 'Nearly $8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda is being canceled,' Russell T. Vought, the White House budget director, wrote in a social media post [when the Energy Department announced the cuts in early October].” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: According to an October NYT report, the cuts appear to be part of Trump's retribution for Democrats' failure to vote for a funding bill to prevent a government shutdown. 

Lisa Friedman & Maxine Joselow of the New York Times: “A federal judge on Monday ruled that construction could resume on a $6.2 billion wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island, striking down the Trump administration’s decision last month to halt work on the Revolution Wind project. Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the Interior Department’s suspension order was 'arbitrary and capricious' in violation of federal law. Revolution Wind is one of five offshore wind projects under construction along the East Coast that were ordered to stop work last month by the Trump administration, which cited unspecified national security concerns. Several states, as well as developers of four of the projects, have challenged the move in court. The case involving Revolution Wind was the first complaint to be heard. The decision is a temporary victory for Revolution Wind and the offshore wind industry.... Orsted, the Danish energy giant that is building Revolution Wind, can now continue with construction as litigation it has filed against the Trump administration proceeds.” A Politico story is here.

The First Amendment forbids the government and its officials from punishing disfavored expression or retaliating against protected speech. That prohibition applies with particular force to legislators speaking on matters of public policy. -- Sen. Mark Kelly, suit against Pete Hegseth ~~~ 

~~~ Megan Mineiro of the New York Times: “Senator Mark Kelly, Democrat of Arizona, on Monday sued Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the Pentagon over a move to punish him for a video he released with other lawmakers reminding military members that they must not follow illegal orders. The Defense Department said last week that it was taking administrative action against Mr. Kelly, a retired Navy captain and astronaut who is serving his first full term in the Senate, that could reduce his retirement rank and military pension. Mr. Hegseth has accused the senator, who is regarded as a potential 2028 presidential contender, of sedition and treason for posting a video along with five other Democratic lawmakers in which he did not name any specific order but said: 'Our laws are clear. You can refuse illegal orders.' The lawsuit filed in Washington asked a federal judge to block the Pentagon’s efforts to punish Mr. Kelly and find them 'unlawful and unconstitutional.'” ~~~

     ~~~ Heather Cox Richardson elaborates. MB: By now, you are probably tired of reading stuff about how terrible Donald Trump & Pete Hegseth are. Richardson's elaboration on the Kelly lawsuit, however, are worth reading, because Donald Trump & Pete Hegseth are so terrible. 

Reid Epstein of the New York Times: “Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts on Monday let fly a wide-ranging attack on business-friendly Democrats and their billionaire supporters, warning that her party risked cozying up too much to corporate interests as it tries to shed perceptions that it has drifted too far to the left. 'I understand the temptation — in this moment of national crisis — to sand down our edges to avoid offending anyone, especially the rich and powerful who might finance our candidates,' she said in a speech at the National Press Club in Washington. 'But we can’t win unless we rebuild trust' with the working class.... Ms. Warren said on Monday afternoon that ... [Donald] Trump had called her after her speech and they had discussed affordability.”

Scott Nover of the Washington Post: “Lawmakers from both parties and houses of Congress have agreed to provide about $653 million to fund Voice of America’s parent agency, rejecting ... Donald Trump’s demand to defund the international broadcaster and shut it down. A bipartisan spending bill released Sunday would allocate $643 million for broadcasting from the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees VOA, plus nearly $10 million for capital improvements. That figure is ... more than four times the $153 million Trump requested that Congress provide to 'support the orderly shutdown of USAGM operations.' The outlay is included in a broader bipartisan spending deal negotiated by House and Senate appropriators. The package still requires House and Senate approval before heading to Trump’s desk.” 

Raquel Uribe & Ryan Reilly of NBC News: "Former special counsel Jack Smith will testify publicly before the House Judiciary Committee next week, Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, announced Monday night. The scheduled Jan. 22 hearing comes after Smith sat for more than eight hours for a closed-door deposition with the Republican-led committee in December regarding his investigations into ... Donald Trump. Smith had requested a public hearing before that testimony, but Republicans refused."

If you are pinning your hopes for a return to normality on Trump's unpopularity & GOP policies effectively ending the fascist state via a national uprising in the 2026 or at least the 2028 elections, there's this: ~~~ 

~~~ Patrick Marley & Yvonne Sanchez of the Washington Post: Donald “Trump, openly fearful that a Congress controlled by Democrats could investigate him, impeach him and stymie his agenda, is using every tool he can find to try to influence the 2026 midterm elections and, if his party loses, sow doubt in their validity. Many of these endeavors ... challeng[e] long-established democratic norms. They include unprecedented demands that Republican state lawmakers redraw congressional districts before the constitutionally required 10-year schedule, the prosecution of political opponents, a push to toughen voter registration rules and attempts to end the use of voting machines and mail ballots. The administration has gutted the role of the nation’s cybersecurity agency in protecting elections; stocked the Justice Department, Homeland Security Department and FBI from top to bottom with officials who have denied the legitimacy of the 2020 election; given a White House audience to people who, like the president, promote the lie that he won the 2020 election; sued over state and local election policies that Trump opposes; and called for a new census that excludes noncitizens. The wide-ranging efforts seek to expand on some of the strategies he and his advisers and allies used to try to reverse the 2020 results that culminated in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Alaska Senate Race. Kellen Browning & Shane Goldmacher of the New York Times: “Former Representative Mary Peltola of Alaska, a Democrat, announced on Monday that she was running for the state’s Senate seat, giving Democrats a big boost as they fight an uphill battle to win back the Senate in the midterm elections. Ms. Peltola, who was Alaska’s sole House member from 2022 until her defeat in 2024, is one of her red state’s few prominent Democrats. She has been considered perhaps the only person who could pose a threat to Senator Dan Sullivan, a Republican who is up for re-election this year.”

Mississippi. Sophie Bates, et al., of the AP: “A suspect in an arson fire at a synagogue that was bombed by the Ku Klux Klan decades ago admitted to targeting the historic institution because it’s a Jewish house of worship and confessed what he had done to his father, who turned him in to authorities after observing burn marks on his son’s ankles, hands and face, the FBI said Monday. Stephen Pittman was charged with maliciously damaging or destroying a building by means of fire or an explosive. The 19-year-old suspect confessed to lighting a fire inside the building..., according to an FBI affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Mississippi on Monday.”