Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.
HCR today: "Greg Bovino claimed the true victims of yesterday’s shooting were federal agents.
But Americans are not buying it. They are coalescing around the idea of the American people versus an out-of-control government. As conservative lawyer George Conway put it: “I just checked—it turns out that Art. II, Sec. 1 of the Constitution of the United States does *not* say ‘The executive Power shall be vested in a bunch of sociopaths who think they can do whatever the f*ck they want and make sh*t up as they go along.’”
Reports out of Minnesota say that in the face of the terror inflicted on it by federal agents, the people there are even more closely linked together in community solidarity. They are patrolling the streets, donating food, delivering groceries, helping with legal services, organizing to look out for each other in a demonstration of community solidarity so foreign to administration figures that Attorney General Pam Bondi yesterday suggested that there was something nefarious about how well organized they are as they protect their neighbors.
The Minnesota Department of Corrections expressed its condolences to the family and loved ones of Alex Pretti and said that although Bovino claimed that the operation was targeting a man with a significant criminal history, that information was false.
In fact, the individual Bovino identified had never been in custody in Minnesota, and records showed only traffic-related offenses for him. Records did show, though, that he had been in federal immigration custody during Trump’s first administration and had been released.
Chief Brian O’Hara of the Minneapolis Police Department told Margaret Brennan of Face the Nation, “People have had enough. This is the third shooting now in less than three weeks. The Minneapolis Police Department went the entire year last year recovering about 900 guns from the street, arresting hundreds and hundreds of violent offenders, and we didn’t shoot anyone, and now this is the second American citizen that’s been killed, it’s the third shooting within three weeks…. This is not sustainable.
The Minnesota National Guard made it clear which side they were on. Wearing neon vests to distinguish themselves from federal agents, they handed out doughnuts, coffee, and hot chocolate to anti-ICE protesters.
The newest killing has opened up a rift in Republican ranks. Administration officials not allied with Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and her cronies are complaining to reporters, including Bill Melugin of the Fox News Channel, that they are frustrated with DHS officials’ statements that Pretti was intending a “massacre” of federal agents in the face of videos that disprove such absurd claims. They have told Melugin such comments are “catastrophic.” “[W]e are losing this war,” sources say, “we are losing the base and the narrative.”
Indeed, at the base level of politics, MAGA supporters who support gun ownership are appalled by statements like that of FBI director Kash Patel, who told the Fox News Channel’s Maria Bartiromo, “You cannot bring a firearm loaded with multiple magazines to any sort of protest that you want. It’s that simple. You don’t have the right to break the law and incite violence.” But Pretti had a license to carry a weapon, and he did not brandish it. President Rob Doar of the Minnesota Gun Owners Law Center noted that Pretti had the right to carry a gun in that situation and that it shouldn’t be necessary “to choose between exercising your First Amendment rights or your Second Amendment rights.” He expressed concern that “our government and agents of our government are not engaging in good faith with what we’re seeing with our own eyes.”
Aside from a few strong MAGA voices, elected Republicans appeared reluctant to defend the killing. Neither Senate majority leader John Thune (R-SD) nor House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) commented on it.
Vermont’s Republican governor Phil Scott did, though, leading the way for other Republicans in districts that are sliding away from MAGA. In a statement, he said: “Enough…It’s not acceptable for American citizens to be killed by federal agents for exercising their God-given and constitutional rights to protest their government. At best, these federal immigration operations are a complete failure of coordination of acceptable public safety and law enforcement practices, training, and leadership. At worst, it’s a deliberate federal intimidation and incitement of American citizens that’s resulting in the murder of Americans…. The president should pause these operations, de-escalate the situation, and reset the federal government’s focus on truly criminal illegal immigrants. In the absence of presidential action, Congress and the courts must step up to restore constitutionality.”
"Today the editorial boards of both Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal and his New York Post urged the administration to pause its ICE operations in Minneapolis after the killing of Alex Pretti. The Wall Street Journal’s famously right-wing editorial board warned that “[t]he Trump Administration spin on this simply isn’t believable.” It continued: “Ms. Noem and Mr. Miller aren’t credible spokesmen. Their social-media and cable-TV strategy is to own the libs, rather than to persuade Americans. This is backfiring against Republicans…. Mr. Miller’s mass deportation methods are turning immigration, an issue Mr. Trump owned in 2024, into a political liability for Republicans in 2026. Americans don’t want law enforcement shooting people in the street or arresting five-year-old boys.”
Tonight, the editorial board of the New York Post warned that Trump’s ICE actions in Minneapolis are “backfiring.” “Swing voters…see US citizens dying at federal agents’ hands, and recoil in horror.” It concluded: “Mr. President, the American people didn’t vote for these scenes and you can’t continue to order them to not believe their lying eyes.”
I have concluded, until all is uncovered, that I could probably find many of the current ICE/other thugs among the June 6th Capitol thugs. If so, cover the faces so no one knows. Paranoid, perhaps but uncover the faces and change my mind.
I have concluded, until all is uncovered, that I could probably find many of the current ICE/other thugs among the June 6th Capitol thugs. If so, cover the faces so no one knows. Paranoid, perhaps but uncover the faces and change my mind.
@davidmoran, he comes from a country led by the godfather of modern fascism and a government rotting with racist ideology. Ignorance isn’t his flaw, it’s his upbringing.
@davidmoran, he comes from a country led by the godfather of modern fascism and a government rotting with racist ideology. Ignorance isn’t his flaw, it’s his upbringing.
Even more to the point, his upbringing was one of being surrounded by persistent national threats. Big stick aggression over peaceful negotiations became his moral compass, in no small part due to excessive U.S. arms and funds; 'tis much akin to the distorted sense of entitlement of some trust fund babies. Any challenge to his perspective made by contributors on these pages simply makes him feel more at home.
Comments
@Old_Joe - that particular series of pics made me nauseous.
I can't argue with this.
That is one hideous looking son-of-a-bitch!
"Greg Bovino claimed the true victims of yesterday’s shooting were federal agents.
But Americans are not buying it. They are coalescing around the idea of the American people versus an out-of-control government. As conservative lawyer George Conway put it: “I just checked—it turns out that Art. II, Sec. 1 of the Constitution of the United States does *not* say ‘The executive Power shall be vested in a bunch of sociopaths who think they can do whatever the f*ck they want and make sh*t up as they go along.’”
Reports out of Minnesota say that in the face of the terror inflicted on it by federal agents, the people there are even more closely linked together in community solidarity. They are patrolling the streets, donating food, delivering groceries, helping with legal services, organizing to look out for each other in a demonstration of community solidarity so foreign to administration figures that Attorney General Pam Bondi yesterday suggested that there was something nefarious about how well organized they are as they protect their neighbors.
The Minnesota Department of Corrections expressed its condolences to the family and loved ones of Alex Pretti and said that although Bovino claimed that the operation was targeting a man with a significant criminal history, that information was false.
In fact, the individual Bovino identified had never been in custody in Minnesota, and records showed only traffic-related offenses for him. Records did show, though, that he had been in federal immigration custody during Trump’s first administration and had been released.
Chief Brian O’Hara of the Minneapolis Police Department told Margaret Brennan of Face the Nation, “People have had enough. This is the third shooting now in less than three weeks. The Minneapolis Police Department went the entire year last year recovering about 900 guns from the street, arresting hundreds and hundreds of violent offenders, and we didn’t shoot anyone, and now this is the second American citizen that’s been killed, it’s the third shooting within three weeks…. This is not sustainable.
The Minnesota National Guard made it clear which side they were on. Wearing neon vests to distinguish themselves from federal agents, they handed out doughnuts, coffee, and hot chocolate to anti-ICE protesters.
The newest killing has opened up a rift in Republican ranks. Administration officials not allied with Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and her cronies are complaining to reporters, including Bill Melugin of the Fox News Channel, that they are frustrated with DHS officials’ statements that Pretti was intending a “massacre” of federal agents in the face of videos that disprove such absurd claims. They have told Melugin such comments are “catastrophic.” “[W]e are losing this war,” sources say, “we are losing the base and the narrative.”
Indeed, at the base level of politics, MAGA supporters who support gun ownership are appalled by statements like that of FBI director Kash Patel, who told the Fox News Channel’s Maria Bartiromo, “You cannot bring a firearm loaded with multiple magazines to any sort of protest that you want. It’s that simple. You don’t have the right to break the law and incite violence.” But Pretti had a license to carry a weapon, and he did not brandish it. President Rob Doar of the Minnesota Gun Owners Law Center noted that Pretti had the right to carry a gun in that situation and that it shouldn’t be necessary “to choose between exercising your First Amendment rights or your Second Amendment rights.” He expressed concern that “our government and agents of our government are not engaging in good faith with what we’re seeing with our own eyes.”
Aside from a few strong MAGA voices, elected Republicans appeared reluctant to defend the killing. Neither Senate majority leader John Thune (R-SD) nor House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) commented on it.
Vermont’s Republican governor Phil Scott did, though, leading the way for other Republicans in districts that are sliding away from MAGA. In a statement, he said: “Enough…It’s not acceptable for American citizens to be killed by federal agents for exercising their God-given and constitutional rights to protest their government. At best, these federal immigration operations are a complete failure of coordination of acceptable public safety and law enforcement practices, training, and leadership. At worst, it’s a deliberate federal intimidation and incitement of American citizens that’s resulting in the murder of Americans…. The president should pause these operations, de-escalate the situation, and reset the federal government’s focus on truly criminal illegal immigrants. In the absence of presidential action, Congress and the courts must step up to restore constitutionality.”
"Today the editorial boards of both Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal and his New York Post urged the administration to pause its ICE operations in Minneapolis after the killing of Alex Pretti. The Wall Street Journal’s famously right-wing editorial board warned that “[t]he Trump Administration spin on this simply isn’t believable.” It continued: “Ms. Noem and Mr. Miller aren’t credible spokesmen. Their social-media and cable-TV strategy is to own the libs, rather than to persuade Americans. This is backfiring against Republicans…. Mr. Miller’s mass deportation methods are turning immigration, an issue Mr. Trump owned in 2024, into a political liability for Republicans in 2026. Americans don’t want law enforcement shooting people in the street or arresting five-year-old boys.”
Tonight, the editorial board of the New York Post warned that Trump’s ICE actions in Minneapolis are “backfiring.” “Swing voters…see US citizens dying at federal agents’ hands, and recoil in horror.” It concluded: “Mr. President, the American people didn’t vote for these scenes and you can’t continue to order them to not believe their lying eyes.”
it is really as though you do not know anything or any history and have just drunk Fox for however long
.