Gruppenführer Bovino slinks away

We’ve gotten very familiar with Greg Bovino, the short stormtrooper who dresses in Hugo Boss and struts around the streets of Minneapolis surrounded by masked thugs — he’s almost comically chickenshit.

The Bovino gang of pathetic dumbshits

He’s going away. Apparently, we’ve finally gotten through to Trump’s narcissistic brain, and he’s become aware of the colossal PR catastrophe that is his Minnesota invasion, has chosen Bovino as his scapegoat, and is sending him back to California.

Sorry, California.

This is the way. Mock the executors of his policies to such a degree that even Trump begins to feel a faint hint of embarrassment, and TACO will look for a way to put the blame on someone. He’s even talking about a concept of a plan to maybe reduce the number of ICE goons in the state.

We should increase the pressure, not by getting any one else shot, but by making it clear that his anti-immigrant policies are failing and making him look weak. The next target: keep up the ridicule on Kristi Noem. I’d like to see her lose her status in this administration and go limping back to South Dakota.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, Bovino is being replaced by Tom Homan, a slobbering lunk who talks like he has a mouthful of marbles — or something — and is going to be equally easy to caricature. Isn’t it remarkable how so many of the Trump acolytes are like goofy comic book villains, with their ready suite of silly features? It’s Dick Tracy or Batman all over again.

Perfection.

Every time I try to feel sympathy for a church, they push me away

I had no idea what Cities Church was like. This is the church in St Paul were protesters disrupted a service, horrified at the fact that one of the pastors was also an ICE field agent. Several people have been arrested, and Bondi’s Department of Justice promises a full investigation of the affair.

I think it is rightful to protest a church that takes advantage of the separation of church and state to get tax exemptions, but then hosts a clergy that preaches against secular government. Don’t burn them down, but at the very least the people should have the right to alert the community that one of the pastors is a hypocrite, on the one hand preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ and on the other hand arresting and deporting and bullying the poor and needy. Let everyone know what a lying fraud he is.

But now I learn about Cities Church’s long-running reputation. One protest is not enough.

“[T]hey are insecure little sexist and racist power-mongers who desire to be God,” wrote Rick Pidcock, a former fundamentalist and worship music expert, in a lengthy exposé for Baptist News Global. According to Pidcock, Cities Church is rooted in a network of far-right churches that teach “male headship and female submission” so extreme that their thought leader, John Piper, has argued that women shouldn’t even occupy management positions where men might have to answer to them.

Parnell himself has written extensively about how men “are given a charge to lead.” Under his leadership, female parishioners teach courses on learning to submit to your husband even when it’s “overwhelming, frustrating, or maybe even impossible,” as it seemed to be for a former church member who told Pidcock that the pastors pressured her to stay in a marriage with an emotionally abusive man who bankrupted his family by spending money on online sex workers.

Among Cities Church’s pastors is Joe Rigney, who has recently become a MAGA media darling because he, along with podcaster Allie Beth Stuckey, has been pushing the idea that empathy is a sin. Rigney has partnered with Doug Wilson, a pastor who has praised race relations under slavery and denounced women’s suffrage, to argue that people are “being manipulated by empathy.” Rigney’s misogyny is never far from the surface, including when he denounced empathy as evidence that “feminism is a cancer” because it allows women to move beyond just being “life-givers and nurturers” and into public spaces, where their allegedly toxic compassion is a “curse.”

“Cities Church is part of the Southern Baptist Convention, which was founded in 1845 over the right to own slaves,” Tim Whitaker, a former Christian nationalist who now works to expose the movement on his YouTube channel, told Salon. “This church should be disrupted. As far as I’m concerned, Jesus would’ve been right with those protesters.”

Whitaker’s view illuminates what the MAGA freakout over this protest is ignoring: that freedom of religion is not a shield against criticism of a church’s teachings, especially when those teachings are impacting the lives of other people. Cities Church, he said, “is home to a pastor that works for a federal agency kidnapping brown-skinned immigrants and killing unarmed citizens.” The anti-empathy and bigoted views taught inside the church are directly affecting people outside of it.

This is the Church of Doug Wilson, not the Church of Jesus, and it’s nothing but a sheltered little pocket of poison infesting the body politic. We have a system in which you are not even allowed to criticize the most evil, odious views if they are said by a man wearing a clerical collar, and it has to stop.

I don’t agree that empathy is a sin, but that’s OK because I feel no empathy for a nest of vipers in my state.

It’s all lies

It’s hard to get going in the morning, because we’re all just swimming in lies. The administration lies non-stop — they’re repeating obvious lies over and over, despite the fact that we have multiple videos that allow us to see with our own eyes how false they are.

The echo is repeated over and over again by the media. Fox News only lies, and the lies are expanding into CBS News with the corruption named “Bari Weiss”. But occasionally they slip up.

Pam Bondi has delivered an ultimatum to Minnesota. They will pull ICE out of the state (they say…don’t believe them) IF we do just three things:

“You and your office must restore the rule of law, support ICE officers, and bring an end to the chaos in Minnesota,” Bondi wrote in the letter, which was published by The New York Times and other outlets. “Fortunately, there are common sense solutions to these problems that I hope we can accomplish together.”

To stop the crisis, Bondi directed Walz to repeal Minnesota’s “sanctuary policies” for migrants and share information on its welfare programs, which have been under scrutiny over alleged fraud in government-supported child care centers and million of dollars in funds stolen through a food aid program dating back to the pandemic.

She also requested access to the state’s voter registration records “to confirm that Minnesota’s voter registration practices comply with federal law.”

So she wants an end to policies that protect immigrants, and she wants unfettered access to all the state information on welfare and … voter registration? Donald Trump wants to be able to learn as much as possible about how our citizens vote. You know, our mostly Democratic citizens. This is a crude attempt to undermine democracy.

The state has told her no, flatly, which is good. I’d rather not have ICE knocking on my door because my record shows I’m a reliable, consistent Democratic voter and they want to intimidate people like me.

Impeach Pam Bondi. It would be a good start.

Murdered man identified

We now know a few things about the man killed by federal agents.

The man fatally shot by federal officers in Minneapolis this morning has been identified as Alex Jeffrey Pretti, according to sources familiar with the investigation.

Pretti, 37, has an address listed in south Minneapolis.

At a news conference, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said the man who was shot was a 37-year-old white man with no serious criminal history and a record that showed only some parking tickets. Law enforcement sources said Saturday their records show Pretti had no serious criminal history.

O’Hara said the man was a “lawful gun owner” with a permit. Records show that Pretti attended the University of Minnesota. State records show Pretti was issued a nursing license in 2021, and it remains active through March 2026.

So they’re killing law-abiding white people? This isn’t part of the white nationalist agenda, I thought.

Meanwhile, CBP, Republican Tom Emmer, and Donald Trump are blaming “rhetoric” for the death.

Minnesotans are going to be insufferable for a while

Deservedly. This was the scene in Minneapolis yesterday:

The rabble are roused

Donald Trump fantasizes about crowd sizes like that. This one turned out in opposition to him, and they did it on the coldest day of the year so far. You tell Minnesotans that it’s going to be -20°F, and they shrug and pull another layer out of the mud room closet.

And not just Minnesotans: here are my sisters in the balmy Pacific Northwest (and my brother, who isn’t in the photo), declaring what they think in solidarity with the entire nation.

There’s a good feeling that comes with doing the right thing, and people across the country should be feeling that right now. There’s also a feeling of righteousness that comes with being a victim of injustice, and that’s rising hard here in Minnesota. We don’t deserve to be harassed and beaten and searched and murdered because we had done something wrong — those things are being done to us because 1) we are a blue state that voted against Trump in every election, and he takes that personally, and 2) because we have been welcoming to immigrants, and he (and Stephen Miller) are bigots who are lashing out at our friends and colleagues and community members. Punished by professing Christians for being kind to our neighbors, imagine that. It’s what I’ve come to expect from any vocal Christian.

OK, to be fair…

The decency of Minnesotans is mirrored in Lutheran churches seeding what has become the largest refugee population per capita in the United States. Minnesota has had a labor organizing movement since before it became a state. Minnesota created the first high-risk pool in the country to insure “the uninsurable” in 1976.

A word of warning: this isn’t over. We had a one day long general strike, and we can expect reprisals from the federal government. One day is not enough — we’re going to have to tighten our belts for a more prolonged effort, and this needs to spread beyond one state. I’m confident others will join in, because our enemy is a bully who doesn’t respond rationally, or in the best interest of the citizens.

Most importantly, know that what Trump is doing to Minneapolis is the template for what Trump wants to bring to your hometown next.

Minnesota’s general strike should be our template for how we respond nationally.

I’m going to stock up on dried beans and canned vegetables. My father was a blue collar union man, and we knew how to prepare for a strike.

The least we can do — do better, University of Minnesota

There is a planned walkout and protest statewide for 23 January, tomorrow. We want ICE out, and the hope is that a little poke in the pocketbook might send a message. The University of Minnesota sent out the message below to all students and employees.

Dear faculty, staff, and students,

The University is aware of the recently announced call for civic action on Friday, January 23, during which Minnesotans are being encouraged not to attend work, school, or participate in commercial activity in response to federal immigration enforcement in Minnesota.

We fully support the right of faculty, staff, and students to engage in lawful civic expression. We also must ensure continuity of operations and meet our responsibilities to students and the University community.

For all employees
Employees, including students with University jobs, who plan to be away on January 23 must use vacation or personal holiday time with the supervisor’s advance approval. Sick or Earned Sick and Safe Time (ESST) cannot be used for these absences. Unapproved absences, including walking off the job or failing to report to work as scheduled, may result in corrective action in accordance with University policies and collective bargaining agreements.
Course delivery and attendance
As was noted to instructors last week, classes are expected to proceed (UMD-specific policy) as scheduled. Instructors who are considering not holding January 23 class sessions must work with their dean’s office to make appropriate alternate arrangements, including notifying students of these changes.

Regarding excused absences (UMD-specific policy), students must notify instructors of the circumstances causing them to miss a scheduled class meeting in advance or as soon as possible. University policy describes circumstances for excused absences and the opportunity for makeup work. Instructors may grant excused absences for reasons not listed in University policy, but those decisions must be made in a viewpoint-neutral way and in concurrence with your academic unit. Students will not be penalized for excused absences.

We appreciate the professionalism, care, and respect our employees demonstrate during moments of heightened community concern. University leaders and supervisors should offer flexibility where feasible, while also ensuring appropriate arrangements to maintain vital services.

If you have questions about time away, attendance, or supervisory responsibilities, please contact your local HR lead. Please note that we are also tracking potential weather impacts on Friday, January 23. Should there be any operational changes, your campus will communicate. Please connect with your Dean’s office for further guidance on instruction.

In short, they support our right to engage in lawful civic expression, but you better not participate in this one unless you’ve consulted your dean and filled out all the paperwork and you have a good excuse!

Too bad. I’ve emailed all my students and told them to join in the protest. I haven’t consulted my dean or filled out any paperwork, but my excuse is that the entire country has been seized by an incompetent fascist cabal, and a brief work stoppage is the least we can do. We ought to have a nationwide general strike for a period of time sufficient to let the ruling junta know that we mean business.

I wish my university had the conviction and the moral courage to speak out, rather than sending out long weasely excuses for doing nothing.