MALADMINISTRATION II IS NOT AS STRONG AS THEY WANT YOU TO THINK THEY ARE - UPDATED

50,000 people demonstrating against Maladministration II

There are 283 days to the mid-terms. There has been a second federal agent murder in Minneapolis. MSNOW reports he was a 37-year old white U.S. citizen. This morning, federal thugs shot a man in south Minneapolis during what witnesses and video depict as a chaotic street-level struggle. Governor Tim Walz says he called the White House after the shooting and demanded that the operation end: “This is sickening. The President must end this operation. Pull the thousands of violent, untrained officers out of Minnesota. Now.” At 11AM CST, the victim was confirmed dead. Some reporting suggests the involved officers were Border Patrol rather than ICE A cellphone video circulating online - reportedly filmed from inside a nearby business - shows multiple federal thugs on top of a man on the sidewalk. The video depicts striking motions as the man is pinned down. Moments later, multiple shots are fired at close range; the agents scatter backward; the man is left on the ground, largely still. After he is apparently lying still and the agents have scattered, a federal thug fires five additional shots.

UPDATE: The murder victim is recorded on another video saying his name is Matthew James and he is a US citizen. DHS’s on-the-record line is that this occurred during a “targeted operation” and that the person who was shot approached Border Patrol officers with a 9mm handgun; DHS says officers tried to disarm him, he “violently resisted,” and an agent fired “defensive shots.” That creates a sharp public contradiction now being reported explicitly: MPD says James was believed to be a U.S. citizen / lawful gun owner, while DHS describes the operation as targeting an “illegal alien wanted for violent assault.” Multiple outlets reporting from the scene say authorities have declared an unlawful assembly and issued repeated dispersal warnings; Reuters also reports video showing agents using tear gas on the crowd. DURTHWR UPDATE: He has been identified as Alez Pretti.

Reuters reported Friday evening that more than 50,000 people were on the streets marching through the city in the Minneapolis general strike Friday afternoon. The protesters braved a wind-chill factor that brought the air temperature down to nearly minus-20F. Over 500 businesses in Minneapolis closed for the day in solidarity with the strike. Across the state, bars, restaurants and shops were closing for the day. In one of the more dramatic protests, local police arrested dozens of clergy members who sang hymns and prayed as they knelt on a road at Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport, calling for the withdrawal of the 3,000 federal law enforcement officers sent to the city.Organizers said about 100 clergy members were arrested. Miguel Hernandez, a community organizer who closed his business Lito’s Bakery for the day, put on four layers, wool socks and a parka before heading out to protest. “If this were any other time, no one would’ve gone out,” he said, bracing for the weather. “For us, it’s a message of solidarity with our community, that we see the pain and misery that’s going on in the streets, and it’s a message to our politicians that they have to do more than grandstand on the news.”

Slate’s Marc Joseph Stern said Friday, “The truth is that he’s weak. He is not the muscular president he pretends to be on television. When someone says no, and uses tools at their disposal to enforce that boundary, he stands down, because he is terrified of being defeated in a way that he can’t spin as a secret victory.”

No matter what they say or do, Maladministration II is not strong. This morning’s murder shows that. The regime’s lies, distractions and smears grow more desperate and more transparently obvious by the day. No matter how stomach-churning or cringe-inducing as they are, every one of the lies proves one thing clear: Maladministration II is demonstrating weakness, not strength. Yes, they are still a threat and they can do severe damage as the bull in a china shop they are. These are indeed “the times that try men’s (and women’s) souls.” We have the daily examples of our fellow citizens who are under Trump’s occupation as surely as the people of Boston were under George III’s occupation. Back then, the example of the people of Boston was an inspiration to the rest of the colonists. Let the example of yesterday in Minneapolis - and the daily examples of courage and resistance across the country - be your guide now in choosing what to do.

The best example of what to do is that of Jack Smith before Congress yesterday when he said: “I have seen how the rule of law can erode. My fear is that we have seen the rule of law function in this country for so long that many of us have come to take it for granted. But, the rule of law is not self-executing - it depends on our collective commitment to apply it. It requires dedicated service on behalf of others, especially when that service is difficult and comes with costs. Our willingness to pay those costs is what tests and defines our commitment to the rule of law and to this wonderful country. I will not be intimidated. I think these statements are also made as a warning to others what will happen if they stand up. And I am, as I say, I’m not going to be intimidated.”

Pam Bondi announced Friday she intends to leave the second volume of Jack Smith’s report in “the dustbin of history.” Assistant United States Attorney Manolo Reboso wrote: “The United States agrees with the former defendants in this case that Volume II should not be released outside of the Department of Justice. Smith not only weaponized the Department of Justice against a leading presidential candidate in pursuit of an anti-democratic end, but he did so without legal authority and while targeting constitutionally protected activity. Put simply, Smith’s tenure was marked by illegality and impropriety, and under no circumstance should his work product be given the full weight and authority of this Department. Attorney General Pam Bondi has determined that Volume II is an internal deliberative communication that is privileged and confidential and should not be released outside the Department of Justice.” We’ll see what the Eleventh Circuit has to say.

Three activists arrested in connection to a protest at a church where the leader of a local ICE field office serves as a pastor were released from custody on Friday afternoon. Former Twin Cities NAACP president Nekima Levy Armstrong, St. Paul School Board member Chauntyll Louisa Allen and William Kelly were arrested Thursday. Levy Armstrong and Allen were released from law enforcement custody at the Sherburne County Jail in Elk River, Minnesota, on Friday. The Racial Justice Network, a grassroots organization led by Levy Armstrong, said in a social media post that federal judges ordered the “immediate release” of her and Allen. Kelly, according to attorneys, was also released on Friday.

Minneapolis FBI Supervisory Agent Tracee Mergen has resigned after starting a civil rights use-of-force investigation into the shooting of Renee Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross, only to have bureau leadership in Washington discontinue that investigation. She becomes the 11th Federal official to resign over the government’s handling of the shooting and its aftermath. Previously six Minneapolis based federal prosecutors and four Washington based civil rights division federal prosecutors also resigned. The DOJ’s position as articulated by Deputy AG Todd Blanche is that no investigation of Ross is warranted. It’s hard to overstate how unusual all of this is. Federal agents and federal prosecutors are not famous for resigning in public protest. When they do, it usually means one of two things: the internal process has become indefensible, or leadership is demanding conduct that professionals do not want their names attached to.

What a total crock of shit: “Munchkin Himmler” Greg Bovino and the ICE scum said at their press conference Friday that the 5-year-old seen being placed into a federal vehicle in Minneapolis was now with his family. Bovino said Liam Ramos was now at an ICE family detention center with his father, whom ICE agents were targeting earlier this week. (FACT CHECK: The truth is that the father and son are now detained at the Dilley Detention Center in San Antonio, Texas, a facility that has been the subject of numerous complaints that it fails to provide appropriate care for minors.) Marcos Charles, executive assistant director of Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), said: “While other officers apprehended his father after conducting the arrest, my officers stayed with the child. They cared for him, took him to get something to eat from a drive thru restaurant, and spent hours ensuring he was taken care of. Again. My officers did that, not his father. My officers did everything they could to reunite him with his family.” Responding to the reports ICE used the child as “bait”, Charles said that agents had been trying to get the boy into the warm with his family, but they had refused to open the door to them. (FACT CHECK: The school district previously said the boy’s father told the mother not to open the door to agents.) Bovino then claimed that Ramos’ father, Ecuadoran national Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, had abandoned him, having left the boy in his vehicle and fled on foot from agents as they sought to detain him. Charles said his officers had been “heartbroken” to see the boy left behind by his father. “Fortunately, Conejo Arias eventually requested that his child stay with him. We do everything in our power not to separate families. So, they took him back to Minneapolis, to the ICE facility for processing, and now they are being well cared for at a family residential center, (in Texas!) pending their immigration proceedings.” (FACT CHECK: The school district said the family had an active asylum case, and no deportation order was in place.) An attorney working on the case, Marc Prokosch, told reporters that Conejo Arias and Ramos arrived at a port of entry and made an asylum claim under the Biden administration. Prokosch said ICE had ignored their pending case. This is right up there with the old Five O’Clock Follies in Saigon, where officials said things like “We had to destroy the village to save it.” And the father and 2-year old daughter detained on Thursday were kidnapped to the same Texas concentration camp within three hours of their arrests. Every word out of Herr Obergruppenfuhrer Bovino’s mouth is a lie, including “and” and “the.”

More lies from ICE: According to WIRED, ICE agents have reportedly doxxed themselves on social media despite claims from ICE Barbie that other people are targeting them online. ICE employees have posted on social media, including LinkedIn, outing their roles with the agency. At the same time, Noem has threatened that sharing their identities is a crime and said it’s a main reason they wear masks. A WIRED analysis of the “ICE List” site found the database relies heavily on information DHS employees have posted publicly online themselves. This comes at a time when DHS has characterized reporting on or publicizing the identity of ICE officers as “doxing” and has threatened to prosecute perceived offenders to the fullest extent of the law. “Of the 1,580 pages, nearly 90 percent mention LinkedIn as a source of information,” WIRED said.

Here’s another smack in the face for ICE: A federal judge in California is poised to rule any day on whether to allow the nation’s first statewide ban on masked law enforcement officers to take effect. Maladministration II sued to block it, arguing states have no authority to regulate federal agents and that forcing ICE officers to unmask would endanger them and their families. But at a recent hearing, where the government warned that letting California proceed would unleash “chaos” nationwide, the presiding judge appeared totally unconvinced. She asked: “Why can’t they perform their duties without a mask? They did that until 2025, did they not?” DOJ lawyers struggled to answer and went off on tangents about how outrageous it would be if the state ordered all ICE agents to wear pink shirts. If the law stands, California would become the first state in the country to formally reject anonymous federal policing. Other states are watching closely but not waiting around to take action.

More good resistance: In just the past few weeks, the mask-banning movement appears to be picking up steam, notwithstanding the failure of the U.S. Congress to do anything.In Massachusetts, lawmakers have filed legislation that would ban masked officers inside courthouses and require federal agents to show judicial warrants before making civil immigration arrests. The goal, sponsors say, is to ensure people aren’t too afraid to show up to court, whether as defendants, witnesses, or victims. In New Jersey, a bill has advanced that would require all law enforcement officers, including federal agents, to keep their faces uncovered while performing official duties in public. In Washington state, lawmakers are considering multiple proposals that would bar ICE agents from wearing masks, restrict access to schools and hospitals without judicial warrants, and allow people to sue if they are detained by unlawfully masked officers. Even in deep-red Missouri, officials are weighing local ordinances that would require officers to show their faces and badge numbers.

Even what passes nowadays for the FBI warned just before the holidays about a spate of attacks from ICE impersonators and the need for actual ICE officers to do more to identify themselves. Criminals are donning fake uniforms and covering their faces in order to pull of heists and get away with violent assault.

How incompetent is what’s left of the DOJ? This incompetent: Senior U.S. District Judge C. Ashley Royal, a George W. Bush appointee in the Middle District of Georgia, concluded that the DOJ filed its motion to obtain voter data in the wrong court, and he lacks jurisdiction to even rule on the merits of the request in the first place. “Only the Northern District of Georgia would have subject matter jurisdiction over this action. First, the record shows the Attorney General’s written demand was mailed and emailed to Defendant Brad Raffensperger, Secretary of State, and Blake Evans, Director of the Elections Division of the Secretary of State’s Office, at their principal offices which are located in the Northern District of Georgia. Second, the record shows the Secretary’s administration of the statewide voter registration database takes place in Northern District of Georgia, and all orders for copies of Georgia voter lists are processed in the Elections Division in Northern District of Georgia.” The decision means that the DOJ will have to refile in the other court to even have its argument heard.

Here’s more good resistance: A man tried on a felony charge of aiming a laser at presidential helicopter Marine One while it was transporting Trump was acquitted recently by a jury in Washington DC, which reached its decision in about 35 minutes Tuesday. The swift verdict of not guilty in the case of Jacob Winkler represented another high-profile defeat for Jeanine Pirro, the former Fox News host whom Trump appointed to be the US attorney for the nation’s capital. Pirro’s office has pursued harsh penalties against individuals accused of attacking federal officers or threatening the president but has failed multiple times. Go crawl back in your wine box, “Judge” Jeanine, you stupid bimbo drunk.

How fucking ignorant is Dilbert? This much: As a severe winter storm makes its way across the United States, Trump issued a confused statement in an attack on environmentalists, who he dubbed “environmental insurrectionists.” Writing on Lies Anti-social: “Record Cold Wave expected to hit 40 States. Rarely seen anything like it before. Could the Environmental Insurrectionists please explain – WHATEVER HAPPENED TO GLOBAL WARMING???” Trump has long been a critic of the concept of climate change, calling it last September “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world.” According to NASA, the earth’s surface temperature has increased dramatically over the past 80 years, with 2024 being the hottest year on record since 1880. The existence of extreme cold weather events amid global warming is also a well-documented and well-researched phenomenon, with changes in atmospheric patterns from global warming sometimes allowing for Arctic air to spill southward in atypical ways.

One day after Dilbert announced the complete US withdrawal from the World Health Organization, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that California would become the first state to join the organization’s Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network, in a rebuke of Maladministration II’s withdrawal from international collaborations. “As President Trump withdraws the United States from the World Health Organization, California is stepping up under Governor Gavin Newsom - becoming the first, and currently the only, state to join the WHO’s Global Outbreak Alert & Response Network (GOARN), strengthening public health preparedness and rapid response coordination,” Newsom’s office said in a statement.

Dilbert was not happy with Newsom upstaging him all week at Davos. Friday, he posted on Lies Anti-Social: “Gavin Newscum, as a “Lame Duck” Governor of a Failing State, should not be at Davos running around screaming for the attention of Foreign Leaders, and embarrassing our Country. He made a mockery of himself, and everybody, including his staff, knows it!” He then accused Newsom of “not allowing” water from Northern California to combat the LA wildfires a year ago (Dilbert’s release of water from northern California reservoirs was counter-productive) “With a record like he’s got, the ruination of one of the most beautiful places on Earth, where people are leaving in droves, it is unimaginable that he could run for President but, who knows, it’s a very strange World!” Newsom responded succinctly to Trump’s 158-word attack. “Rent free,” he wrote on X.

Renée Fleming has canceled her scheduled appearances at what used to be the Kennedy Center.

Those cancellations make Fleming the latest of many artists to withdraw from performances at the center. Fleming had previously resigned as Artistic Advisor at Large to the Center last year in protest of Trump’s purge of existing leadership and the installation of his own board of close allies. Fleming was slated to appear alongside conductor James Gaffigan and the National Symphony Orchestra for two performances in May. Ric Grenell has announced he will find a “better alternative” to replace Fleming. “A new soloist and repertoire will be announced at a later date, and the remainder of the program remains unchanged.” Good luck with that, you living embodiment of the worst anti-gay slurs.

The White House is pulling out all the stops to try and salvage Epstein “sloppy seconds” Melanoma’s documentary, which is projected to bomb when it opens next weekend. The vanity project, which Jeff Bezos paid $40 million for, is projected to make a measly $5 million on its opening weekend once it is released on January 30. That is despite the studio spending an additional $35 million on marketing and opening the release to 27 different countries. The first lady’s office announced on X that the documentary will focus on “an impactful first year of leadership as FLOTUS during the second term of the Trump Administration.” (Can someone please tell me anything she’s done?) Promotion for the movie included posters for it that surfaced at Trump’s controversial Davos speaking engagements this week. Here in LA, many of the outdoor billboards advertising this crock of shit have been defaced and I hear that’s happened elsewhere.

You are not the crazy ones. These are truly the times that try men’s (and women’s) souls. This is the fight of our lifetimes, and the challenge of our generation. I realize times are getting harder, which is why some readers understandably didn’t renew their subscriptions. There are 22 free subscribers who read TAFM daily according to the site stats. If you folks happen to be in a position to help make up the gap, please consider joining the other paid subscribers here at That’s Another Fine Mess to keep things going. Across Substack, authors like me are losing to the Big Names who come here to say the same things they said in corporate media. We need your help! It’s only 21 cents a day. I am deeply thankful to those who have done so.

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