<[Event "21st World Open"] [Site "Philadelphia PA"]
[Date "1993.07.04"]
[EventDate "1993"]
[Round "6"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Shushkovsky, Sam"]
[Black "Rios Parra, Alejandro"]
[ECO "E87"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.a4 e6 7.Be2 Be7 8.Be3 O-O 9.O-O Nc6 10.Kh1 Qc7 11.f4 Re8 12.Bf3 Nxd4 13.Qxd4 e5 14.Qd2 Be6 15.f5 Bc4 16.Rfe1 Rac8 17.a5 d5 18.exd5 Bb4 19.Bg5 Qd6 20.Bxf6 Qxf6 21.Ra4 Qd6 22.Qg5 f6 23.Qh5 Bxc3 24.bxc3 Re7 25.Rd1 Bb5 26.Rh4 h6 27.Qg4 Kh8 28.Be4 Rxc3 29.Rh3 Rec7 30.Rxc3 Rxc3 31.Qg6 Re3 32.Qg4 Qb4 33.h3 Rxe4 34.Qg6 Re1+ 35.Rxe1 Qxe1+ 36.Kh2 0-1>

<[Event "21st World Open"] [Site "Philadelphia PA"]
[Date "1993.07.02"]
[EventDate "1993"]
[Round "4"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Tyehimba, Bem"]
[Black "Flores, Anthony R"]
[ECO "C14"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Be7 5.e5 Nfd7 6.Bxe7 Qxe7 7.Qd2 c6 8.f4 f5 9.exf6 Nxf6 10.Nf3 O-O 11.Bd3 h6 12.O-O c5 13.dxc5 Qxc5+ 14.Kh1 Nc6 15.Rae1 Nd4 1-0>

<[Event "20th Monadnock Marathon"] [Site "Windsor NH"]
[Date "1997.10.25"]
[EventDate "1997"]
[Round "4.8"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Shaw, Alan"]
[Black "Huggins, Noel J"]
[ECO "D03"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

<U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is quietly attempting something ambitious: a reinvention for a post-Trump political landscape, one that may also position her for a presidential run in 2028.

After clashing with the president and announcing her exit from Congress, the Republican representative from Georgia has begun shedding her MAGA maximalism in favor of a softer, ostensibly principled posture ‒ anti-war, anti-interventionist and openly skeptical of foreign entanglements.

The rebrand hasn’t gone unnoticed. Following her unexpectedly civil November appearance on "The View," there have even been discussions about a future panel role ‒ an idea that would have sounded absurd a year ago, but one that captures the seriousness of her bid for mainstream relevance beyond the Trump era.

Most revealing was her recent sit-down with The New York Times, where Greene portrayed herself as almost tragically naive, claiming she genuinely believed President Donald Trump was something other than what years of conduct made plain.

It was a performance calibrated for absolution. Only the most naive, however, would accept that sincerity at face value.

Marjorie Taylor Greene isn't reevaluating. She's recalibrating.

Greene was not a bystander to Trumpism. In truth, she was one of its loudest enforcers. To suggest she merely misunderstood the man now strains credulity beyond its limits.

For years, Greene thrived by mirroring the mood of the base. When the Republican grassroots were fiercely pro-Israel, she was Israel’s loudest defender, treating dissent as heresy. When that mood shifted ‒ when the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza became impossible to ignore and younger populists turned against foreign aid ‒ Greene pivoted with theatrical speed.

Israel was no longer an ally. It was now accused of “genocide.” No new facts prompted the change. The political wind simply shifted.

The same pattern powered her Epstein files crusade. Once Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Kentucky, and others generated momentum for full transparency, Greene sensed an opportunity. Not just to hit the bureaucracy, but to hit Trump.

She folded the Epstein files directly into her new anti-Israel rebrand, implying that the same forces guiding U.S. policy abroad might be steering Trump’s hesitations at home.

It was convenient. It was calculated. And it let her pose as the lone “authentic” America First voice at the very moment Trump’s support was starting to wobble.

Greene is responding to the shifting political landscape

To be clear, her calls for restraint are not without merit. But in Trump’s world, deviation is betrayal. No wonder he turned on her. No wonder he reduced her, with characteristic cruelty, to “Marjorie Traitor Greene.”

The word "traitor" is extreme, but Greene’s sudden conversion into an anti-establishment Joan of Arc was no less contrived. It was calibrated ‒ built around the rise of new online factions, profitable influencers and narratives gaining traction....>

<....That calculation didn’t stop at rhetoric. It extended to conduct. While denouncing student loan forgiveness as immoral theft, Greene's family business accepted more than $180,000 in pandemic loans that were later forgiven. She condemned federal giveaways in public, while benefiting from them in private.

As the mask slipped, she turned her fire on the very people who had helped put her in power. When conservative commentator Mike Cernovich recently urged her to reconsider leaving Congress, she didn’t pause or reflect. Trump’s former pit bull did what she does best.

She bared her teeth and bit hard on social media: “S--- posting on the internet all day isn’t fighting. Get off YOUR a-- and run for Congress.”

Cernovich had said nothing incendiary. He offered only a call for reflection. Greene responded by attacking a figure representative of the coalition that first lifted her.

Moments like this expose a politician’s true character. Greene desperately wants to market herself as more thoughtful and more compassionate, but her outbursts give away what branding can’t fix. The timing of her pivot isn’t mysterious. She sensed Trump weakening. She sensed the base fracturing. She sensed an opening to reinvent herself.

Then she ran into a harsher reality. She didn’t have the power to make the pivot stick. Many on the left dismiss her as unhinged. Many on the right see through the act. She wasn’t gaining ground. If anything, she was losing a place to stand.

Her moves are more political than principled
And so came the resignation. Not a principled exit, but the failure of an attempted transformation that only the most naive would have believed.

Now she exits Congress with a trail of contradictions and a hunger for a new audience. For years, she successfully sold the right an image of bare-knuckle bluntness ‒ an America First insurgent who said what she meant and meant what she said.

That, too, was a performance. It is worth remembering that before anyone else is taken in.

She will continue to appear on TV. She will continue to reinvent herself. The martyr. The maverick. The misunderstood prophet. But none of this should be mistaken for conscience or growth. Every turn was premeditated, engineered for relevance, visibility and advancement.

Marjorie Taylor Greene walks out of Washington. A short tenure. A loud exit. Branding can mask ambition for a time, but it cannot outrun character. The winds will keep shifting. Greene will keep bending, one eye already fixed on the White House.

What remains to be seen is whether the country will recognize the deceptive pattern ‒ or reward it.>

Except, of course, when I served as his procurer:

<President Donald Trump has hinted about the falling out he had with Jeffrey Epstein after their years-long friendship, but the Wall Street Journal revealed specifics about the story in an exclusive report late Tuesday evening.

According to the report, Mar-a-Lago wasn't merely a frequent hangout for Epstein; the country club would also send Epstein young women to handle his "massages, manicures and other spa services."

A former Mar-a-Lago employee told the Journal that the "services" went on for years. Trump's staff warned each other about the kind of person Epstein was, according to former Epstein employees.

The spa employees would frequently warn each other about Epstein's sexual suggestions, reporting that he would expose himself during appointments.

Epstein was never a dues-paying member of Mar-a-Lago, but Trump still gave his close friends the perks. He even went so far as to tell the spa staff to treat Epstein as if he was a dues-paying member. Epstein's longtime companion, Ghislaine Maxwell, would frequently book the appointments on his behalf.

Everything stopped when an 18-year-old beautician returned from a "house call" to Epstein and said that he had pressured her for sex, the ex-employees told the Journal.

"A manager sent Trump a fax relaying the employee's allegations and urged him to ban Epstein, some of the former employees said. Trump told the manager it was a good letter and said to kick him out," the report said.

The woman gave details to human resources, but the incident was never reported to the police.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt alleged the report was false.

"No matter how many times this story is told and retold, the truth remains: President Trump did nothing wrong and he kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago for being a creep," Leavitt said after claiming the Journal was "writing up fallacies and innuendo."

Trump is currently in a lawsuit against the Journal for a report that Trump submitted a note for Epstein's birthday book that included the outline of a woman's body. Trump denied the report even as the birthday book entries were published.

CNBC's Carl Quintanilla highlighted an excerpt of the report that talked about Trump's ex-wife, Marla Maples, being so "uneasy" about Epstein's presence that she didn't want to spend time with him or Trump when they were together. Still, Epstein continued to party at Mar-a-Lago with Trump.

Mother Jones editor-in-chief Clara Jeffrey cited the ongoing lawsuit between Trump and the Journal. The paper, she said, "continues to break news about their relationship..."

Washington Monthly's politics editor Bill Scher said he was speechless reading that Trump was willing to send young women to Epstein's mansion.

Linguist Luke Steuber remarked, "WSJ just blew this all up by carrying Trump's water. On a lot of people, I think it's going to work."

National security analyst Marcy Wheeler added, "What's interesting abt this story is 18-yo who returned to MAL saying Epstein had pressured her for sex is not clearly IDed as girl whose father was MAL member who really let Trump have it. She could still be, but if not, it would be THREE (known) MAL girls Epstein assaulted before he was reported.">

<U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote a dissent in a case involving mail-in ballots where she needled her conservative colleague, Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Last year, Kavanaugh penned an opinion giving more leeway to immigration agents by claiming that they rarely take American citizens into custody, and if by mistake one is taken, they're released very quickly.

Slate legal reporter and analyst Mark Joseph Stern noticed that in Bost v. Illinois State Board of Elections, Jackson added an interesting citation in footnote eight.

"Contemporary commentators predicted that our decision in Lyons would close the door to 'a broad range of analogous lawsuits' aimed at systemic misconduct and abuse on the part of law enforcement," Jackson wrote, referencing the necessary information. "That prediction proved accurate. Today, courts routinely rely on Lyons to deny plaintiffs standing to seek injunctions against future police behavior. See, e.g., J. W. ex rel. Tammy Williams v. Birmingham Bd. of Educ., 904 F. 3d 1248, 1267 (CA11 2018) (per curiam); Shain v. Ellison, 356 F. 3d 211, 216 (CA2 2004); Whitfield v. Ridgeland, 876 F. Supp. 2d 779, 787– 788 (SD Miss. 2012)."

The final citation she mentioned was the direct attack.

"See also Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo, 606 U. S. ___, ___ (2025) (KAVANAUGH, J., concurring) (slip op., at 4) (concluding that, under Lyons, Latino plaintiffs who were 'stopped for immigration questioning allegedly without reasonable suspicion of unlawful presence' lacked standing to seek an injunction)."

"She isn't letting this one go," commented Stern.

"I’m trading this now and it’s making my day better," The Nation's legal analyst Elie Mystal added on BlueSky.>

<President Donald Trumpleveled his latest attack against a female journalist, saying she asked a “stupid” question, while he spoke to press aboard Air Force One on Sunday. And experts in American studies and mental health emphasize that his ongoing behavior toward female reporters needs our attention.

Trump was asked about the ongoing nationwide protests in Iran — where activists say a deadly crackdown on protests have left at least 2,000 people killed — when he raised the insult.

In a video of the exchange, a journalist could be heard asking Trump about Iran’s warning that it would consider U.S. military bases as “legitimate targets” if Trump intervenes, when Trump responded, in part: “If they do that, we will hit them at levels that they’ve never been hit before.”

When the journalist asked Trump whether he thinks Iran takes his threats seriously, the president fired back: “I think so. Don’t you think so, CNN?”

“She says — CNN — ‘Do you think they take your threats seriously?’” he later added in a mocking tone. “Wouldn’t you say they do after all of the things we’ve done? What a stupid question.”

The journalist was not identified in a clip of the exchange, though Trump said the reporter was from CNN. (Reporters working in the capacity of the network pool represent all of the TV networks — not their individual employers.)

Trump has a history of berating and insulting journalists, with a documented pattern of spewing venom and below-the-belt digs at female journalists — especially in recent months.

In November, the president called New York Times reporter Katie Rogers “ugly,” and he called Bloomberg reporter Catherine Lucey “piggy” that same month. Last month, he attacked CNN White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins in a rant on his Truth Social platform, calling her “stupid and nasty.” He also called ABC News Senior Political Correspondent Rachel Scott“the most obnoxious reporter.”

Kari J. Winter, a professor of American studies at the University at Buffalo — whose expertise includes gender, feminism, race and class — said that Trump is “bursting with contempt for women in the same way that he is red-in-the-face with hatred for Black and brown people.”

But she told HuffPost she believes the president’s “aggressive insults” doesn’t just reveal the “hateful stew boiling inside of him” — it reveals something else.

“It also reveals that he does not know how to formulate reasoned responses to reasonable questions,” she said. “His violent flashes of anger suggest an unhinged mind, frankly. He seems incapable of offering restrained, coherent, informative answers.”

“His type of explosive behavior would be a red flag in anyone, but it’s especially alarming from someone who has a nuclear arsenal under his command,” she continued.

Trump’s responses to being challenged by a woman communicates a lot, experts say. Alexandra Cromer, a licensed professional counselor with Thriveworks, said that given Trump’s well-documented history of berating female journalists, it’s “observable that he gets very frustrated when he perceives that he is being challenged or questioned by a woman.”

“This is rooted in misogynistic thinking and posits that women are ‘less than’ not just him, but men in general,” she told HuffPost, adding that she believes Trump “views women as having less self-worth and less capacity than men (particularly, him).”

“This belief is ego-advantageous, delusional and downright dangerous,” she said.

And as it relates to Trump’s pattern of attacking women’s appearances, Cromer said she believes that it’s largely due to his “own belief that women only have value in their physical appearance, a belief that is centered on a compulsively heteronormative and Caucasian viewpoint of attractiveness, *** and sexuality.”

“When Trump comments on women’s appearances, he not only is seeking to deeply wound women, he’s trying to maintain a dominant power structure over women and encourage ‘obedience,’” she added.

Winter said that Trump’s “repetitious insults are fueled by the most common tropes of misogyny.”

“Men who hate women constantly push the idea that the most important thing about a woman is her appearance,” she said. “Attacking women’s intelligence is the second-most common move.”....>

<....Experts also stress Trump’s treatment of female reporters can’t be normalized and should never go unchallenged.

While there are several issues both domestic and abroad that need our attention, experts emphasize that it’s important to not normalize any of Trump’s alarming behavior — including his pattern of insulting and berating female journalists.

“Yes, there are many significant domestic and international issues that require activism, but this is still a very worthy cause that people should speak out against,” Cromer said. “If the president’s behavior is not challenged and continues to be normalized, we could see women lose rights, respect, and we can even predict a potential increase in violence toward women as a whole.”

Winter said that “historians have long observed that violence breeds violence.”

“Trump’s taste for violent rhetoric and action would be unacceptable from anyone, but his escalating promotion of violence is especially dangerous for the world,” she said.

“If we want to live as moral, self-respecting people, we cannot allow his treatment of female reporters to go unchallenged any more than we can remain silent in the face of ICE’s murder of Renee Good and the battery of other outrages perpetrated every day by this regime,” she later continued, referencing Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old Minneapolis woman who was shot and killed by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer on Jan. 7.

“Can you hope to live with a shred of dignity if you remain as silent as the Germans who were afraid to challenge Hitler?” Winter said, before adding: “For the sake of our very souls, we have to draw the line and refuse to condone or collude.”>

<In a major win for lawmakers, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that candidates have the right to challenge election laws, which could open the doors for a potential flood of lawsuits ahead of this year’s midterm elections.

Republicans have called for sweeping election reform, particularly since 2020 when President Donald Trump lost reelection and insisted it was stolen from him. Specifically, he has argued without evidence that mail-in voting is rife with fraud.

Wednesday’s Supreme Court decision has effectively made it easier for elected officials to sue over voting laws they disagree with.

“I hope it sends a clear message to the lower level judges to not” dismiss similar challenges, Rep. Mike Bost of Illinois, who led the lawsuit the court ruled on, told NOTUS.

In 2022, Bost sued the Illinois State Board of Elections, challenging a law that allowed the counting of mail-in ballots that arrived after Election Day. Lower federal courts initially dismissed the lawsuit, arguing that because Bost won his election with 75% of the vote, he lacked standing to bring the case.

But on Tuesday, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in a 7-2 decision that Bost had a right to sue because “he is a candidate for office. And a candidate has a personal stake in the rules that govern the counting of votes in his election.”

“Candidates have a concrete and particularized interest in the rules that govern the counting of votes in their elections, regardless whether those rules harm their electoral prospects or increase the cost of their campaigns,” Roberts wrote.

Bost said he feels confident that judges will rule in his favor moving forward.

“This will make sure that when you have these lawsuits, you do have standing,” he said. “The Constitution is clear that there is an Election Day. Now that doesn’t mean you can’t early vote, but voting stops on Election Day.”

Rep. Mike Kelly, a Republican from Pennsylvania who led a challenge to his state’s mail-in ballot laws that was ultimately dismissed, told NOTUS there’s more interest now in challenging voting laws than when he first did so in 2020.

Kelly added that the outcome “sets the stage” for more people to challenge mail-in ballots.

In her dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, joined by a fellow liberal, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, warned that by giving candidates the right to challenge voting laws, the Supreme Court “now complicates and destabilizes both our standing law and America’s electoral processes.”

“Alarmingly, today’s ruling also has far-reaching implications beyond Bost’s election, since dispensing with our usual standing requirements opens the floodgates to exactly the type of troubling election-related litigation the Court purportedly wants to avoid,” Jackson wrote.

“For example, under the Court’s new harm-free candidate-standing rule, an electoral candidate who loses in a landslide can apparently still file a disruptive legal action in federal court after the election is over,” Jackson continued. “All he must do is assert that an election rule somehow deprived him of a fair process — even if that rule played no role in the election’s outcome or otherwise caused him harm.”....>

<....Roberts disagreed with Jackson’s assessment, writing in a footnote that he did not believe candidates would “waste their resources” making such challenges.

Republicans suggested candidates would be ready to do so.

Joe Gruters, the chair of the Republican National Committee, which supported Bost’s lawsuit, called the decision a “major win for election integrity and basic accountability.”

“Today, the Court confirmed candidates can challenge unlawful election procedures in their own races,” Gruters continued.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee, which also supported the lawsuit, echoed that statement.

“We are pleased the Court agreed that candidates have a role in ensuring state election laws are consistent with federal law,” the NRSC’s general counsel, Blake Murphy, said in a statement to NOTUS.

Tom Fitton, the president of the conservative group Judicial Watch, which represented Bost in the case, said in a statement that the Supreme Court’s decision was “the most important Supreme Court election law ruling in a generation.”

“Too many courts have denied candidates the standing to challenge unlawful election rules such as the outrageous ballots that arrive after Election Day,” Fitton added. “American citizens concerned about election integrity should celebrate this Supreme Court victory.”

Judicial Watch has another case in the lower courts, brought by Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, that is challenging California’s law allowing mail-in ballots to arrive after Election Day. The case was put on hold pending an outcome in Bost’s case because the defendant in Issa’s case, California’s secretary of state, argued the California Republican lacked standing. The Supreme Court ruling in Bost’s case will likely green-light Issa’s challenge to move forward.

Democrats immediately denounced the decision.

“We’re assuming that Republicans are going to do everything possible to prevent a free and fair election from taking place in November 2026,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said when asked by NOTUS if he expects to see a flurry of legal challenges ahead of the midterms.

The court’s decision allowed Bost’s case to continue in the lower courts, but did not decide on the merits of his challenge to Illinois’ mail-in ballot laws. However, the justices will consider a lawsuit targeting Mississippi’s mail-in ballot laws later this term that could trigger more limitations on voting.>

<One federal judge recently struck down a move by President Donald Trump's administration to compel states to hand over sensitive data on registered voters, and criticized it as "unprecedented and illegal."

In a Thursday ruling, U.S. District Judge David O. Carter (an appointee of former President Bill Clinton) granted a motion by California Secretary of State Shirley Weber to dismiss a lawsuit from the Trump administration over California's voter list. The administration had sued in an effort to sift through a list of more than 20 million voters in the most populous state in the U.S., aiming to find reasons to remove people it deemed ineligible to cast ballots.

The New York Times reported that the administration had aimed to obtain highly sensitive personal information, like Social Security numbers and driver's license numbers. According to the Times, officials in California and elsewhere have argued that handing over that information to the administration "would have a chilling effect on elections."

"The foundation upon which American democracy has been built is the right to vote. Brave Americans have given their lives for more than two hundred years to protect this right. Now it seems the Executive Branch of the United States government wants to abridge the right of many Americans to cast their ballots," Carter wrote in the decision.

"The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) seeks an unprecedented amount of personal information related to California voters from California’s unredacted voting rolls," he continued. "... The issue presented to this court is animated by a well-established principle, long recognized by the Supreme Court: the right to vote is 'a fundamental political right, because [it is] preservative of all rights.' ... The government's request is unprecedented and illegal."

Politico legal correspondent Kyle Cheney pointed out in a post to X that Carter is the same federal judge "who said in 2022 that Trump had likely committed crimes in his quest to subvert the 2020 election." In that 2022 ruling, Carter remarked that it was "more likely than not that President Trump corruptly attempted to obstruct the Joint Session of Congress on January 6, 2021," preceding the first-ever federal indictment of a former U.S. president.>

<Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer Jonathan Ross, who reportedly fatally shot Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, at point-blank range in Minneapolis last week, is now said to be in hiding.

“I know for a fact now he has to be in hiding … for the safety of him and his family,” Trump border czar Tom Homan said during an episode of the “Will Cain Country” podcast, according to The Hill.

Homan alleged that there are “wanted” posters with Ross’ picture and license plate number, and said that Ross is receiving death threats.

“It’s beyond the pale,” Homan added.

He also suggested that Ross may decide to take legal action against those who have labeled him a murderer....>

We already knew Ross was a coward, what with blowing a defenceless woman to pieces.

<Bleak omens point to something horrible building in Minneapolis.

Tensions are rising fast amid violent confrontations between protesters and federal agents enacting President Donald Trump’s deportation purge more than a week after the killing of Renee Good by an ICE agent.

This might be a local showdown. But it’s becoming a national political and cultural moment as cellphones constantly flash with emotionally charged imagery. In one barely believable scene, a disabled woman was pulled out of her car by ICE agents as she drove to a traumatic brain injury appointment.

Other videos show demonstrators chanting expletives at federal officers in the streets. In a polarized nation, everyone can choose an incident to suit their political preference.

This is ruthless crackdown theater choreographed by the president. Minneapolis has become a petri dish for his hardline immigration policies, zeal for militarized law enforcement tactics and attempts to use immigration as a cudgel to crush progressive values in cities that reject his strongman leadership.

Yet the president may also be pushing the country to a pivot point that could end up hurting him politically. While his vow to bolster the US southern border was popular, there’s mounting evidence from opinion polls that Americans are alienated by the bellicose ICE sweeps in a year when Republicans are already dreading the midterm elections.

Trump risks undermining one of his perpetual political strong points — immigration policy — by creating a distinction in the public mind between border security and callous enforcement hundreds of miles away. In Trump’s first term, pictures of undocumented migrant children in cage-like detention were too much for many citizens. In his second, public tolerance for deportations may run deeper. But he’s testing it to its limits in Minnesota.

Federal officials say their surge of 3,000 federal agents into Minnesota is a prudent bid to address out-of-control immigration under the Biden administration and a way to make America safer. They accuse local Democratic leaders of shielding criminals and inciting violence that endangers Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.

Yet the sight of masked, armed men in camouflage piling out of cars, tackling people on the streets and demanding citizenship papers evokes authoritarian imagery that feels distinctly un-American.

These are not traditional policing tactics designed to avoid escalation. It’s as if the administration intends the opposite.

How the White House justifies its crackdown

If officials wanted to cool temperatures, they could. ICE tactics could be moderated. Enforcement could be more subtle and targeted. National authorities could invite their state counterparts to participate in the investigation into the shooting of Good, a 37-year-old mother, instead of prejudging the outcome. All of this could take place without compromising the principle that immigration law must be implemented and without breaking faith with millions of voters who felt less safe because of President Joe Biden’s lax border policies.

But Trump has chosen not to do this. It’s therefore fair to ask whether he’s pleased with the political tumult and violence that erupted as soon as ICE officers descended on Minneapolis.

On Thursday, Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act if the “corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the patriots” of ICE. The move would allow him to deploy Minnesota’s National Guard and to send regular troops into the state.

The law hasn’t been invoked since the Los Angeles riots in 1992 and is typically done in cooperation with state leaders. In this case it would override their wishes, representing a stunning challenge by federal authorities to the power of states that would ignite a constitutional storm.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Thursday implicitly rejected concerns about the aggressive tactics of ICE, and the increasing legal and constitutional concerns about the crackdown in Minneapolis. She said Trump’s warning about the Insurrection Act spoke “very loud and clear” to Democrats who she claimed were encouraging “violence against federal law enforcement officers.” And she complained that such leaders were blocking their local law enforcement from cooperating with ICE because they were “deranged in their hatred” for Trump.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, meanwhile, told reporters at the White House that she had discussed with Trump his authority to utilize the Insurrection Act. This is hardly the rhetoric of an administration seeking to tone down the tension....>

<....Trump’s motivations — aside from his perpetual desire to look strong — are not yet fully clear. He clearly enjoys invoking the specter of unlimited presidential power. He may be trying to intimidate local officials. Perhaps he wants to take the heat off ICE agents by demonizing demonstrators. Or, as he often does, Trump may be seeking to create a narrative for conservative media.

But this is also a moment to which Trump has been building for years. Ever since his first presidential campaign, he’s been spinning a tale of American — especially Democratic — cities as dystopian hellholes that need a strongman’s hand. He’s portrayed Minneapolis in such a light, demeaning its Somali American community as criminal “garbage” that should be thrown out of the country.

This grim vision is a way of justifying his own thirst for powers for which most presidents don’t reach. And perhaps it’s also part of his endless quest for personal dominance.

Long, dark nights in Minneapolis are worsening a political crisis

Nighttime in Minneapolis has become tense and dangerous.

The atmosphere was even more unsettled Thursday evening, a day after the Department of Homeland Security said a federal agent shot and injured a man after he allegedly assaulted the agent. The DHS said two people came out of a nearby apartment and attacked the officer with a snow shovel and a broom handle. After the suspect got loose and joined the attack, the officer fired “defensive shots,” DHS said, striking the man in the leg. CNN has not independently confirmed the government’s depiction of the incident.

Some statements by Democrats have also seemed to stoke political agitation among demonstrators, especially in the emotional aftermath of Good’s killing.

But amid the worsening public safety situation, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, on Thursday issued a direct appeal to Trump on X. “Let’s turn the temperature down,” he wrote. Walz also called on Minnesotans to speak out loudly but peacefully. “We cannot fan the flames of chaos. That’s what he wants,” Walz wrote.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, another Democrat, warned Wednesday that everyday life in his city was being severely constrained, with people afraid to go out as they see neighbors being taken away. “That’s not America. So, I’m calling for peace. Everybody has a role in achieving that peace,” he said.

ICE’s aggressive behavior is raising civil liberties, human rights and constitutional alarms. The ACLU of Minnesota has filed a lawsuit against the federal government over ordeals suffered by several American citizens in the last two months. In one incident, Mubashir Khalif Hussen, 20, was walking during his lunch break when he was violently stopped, pinned to the ground, placed in a headlock and taken away by agents who refused to examine his US passport card until after he was in detention.

Minneapolis City Council President Elliott Payne told CNN that “many of our residents are out there legally observing the operations of our federal government to ensure that our constitutional rights are not getting violated.” He added: “What I’m seeing firsthand is our constitutional rights being violated.”

The Trump administration’s position is that it’s up to Minnesotans to cool tensions by getting out of the way — even though many citizens believe ICE is flouting the Constitution and breaking the law. But the evidence suggests Trump doesn’t really want to see tempers ebb.

“This is something that I saw long ago, and it is part of a clear pattern that he was setting up,” Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman of New York told CNN’s Kasie Hunt on Thursday. “You send in violent ICE agents to inflame tension, to incite violence themselves. … (Trump) will say, ‘there’s so much unrest and chaos. We need the Insurrection Act’ so that he can usurp more power and send the military in.”

If Trump does this, he’s playing with political fire.

A new CNN poll conducted by SSRS finds that most Americans view the fatal shooting of Renee Good as an inappropriate use of force. Less than one-third think ICE operations have made cities safer.

This poses an intriguing political question.

Growing public dissatisfaction and the potential electoral implications mean it might make sense now for Trump to blink — if only to slow the torrent of videos that reflect poorly on ICE tactics and could turn more voters against his party.

But there’s another possibility. The pace of escalation in Minnesota, which officials are making no attempt to stop, could indicate an administration that’s become less constrained by potential political consequences.

<You simply don't get it, do you? You're on three editors' ignore lists now. Well done. No paying member, no editor, zero correction slips, zero game uploads but follows everyone around like a school teacher. Jerk.>

And that is <four> ignore lists.

Only the professional scold and house prefect manque could pull this off. I know I can be a pain in everyone's ass at times but would never hesitate to help whenever I could.

<Veteran Democratic strategist James Carville predicted Saturday that the 2026 midterm elections will be a “wipeout” for Republicans, with Democrats picking up 25 seats “at a minimum.”

“Frankly, it’s going to be a wipeout,” Carville told host Kayleigh McEnany on Fox News’s “Saturday in America.”

“Your viewers need to know that the Democrats are going to pick up at a minimum 25 seats, maybe as high as 45. In all likelihood, the Democrats will carry the Senate,” he added.

Carville was responding to an op-ed in the New York Times by David Plouffe, a former senior advisor to former President Obama, in which Plouffe argued Democrats had “no credible path to sustained control of the Senate and the White House.”

“After the adjustments to the Electoral College map that look likely to come with the next census, the Democratic presidential nominee could win all the states won by Kamala Harris, plus the blue wall of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and still fall short of the 270 electoral votes needed to win,” Plouffe wrote. “An already unforgiving map becomes more so.”

McEnany asked if Carville had “as dim of a view” on the path forward for Democrats as Plouffe, to which Carville responded that Plouffe’s outlook was more focused on 2028 and beyond than the upcoming midterms.

After calling Carville’s prediction “bold,” McEnany argued that an “economic revival” coming from the Trump administration could actually lead Republicans to overperform in November.

“Well, I guess anything is possible,” Carville replied, before blasting comments Trump made earlier in the week in an interview with Reuters, suggesting “we shouldn’t even have an election” because of how much he had accomplished.

“We might disagree on who’s going win, but I think you and I can agree we got to have the election, right? That’s the important thing, is to have it,” Carville said.

McEnany brushed off Trump’s remark as being “in jest,” echoing a similar defense made by press secretary Karoline Leavitt during a Friday press briefing.

“The president was simply joking. He was saying we’re doing such a great job. We’re doing everything the American people thought, maybe we should just keep rolling, but he was facetiously,” Leavitt told reporters when asked about Trump’s election comment.

Trump has publicly worried that he could be impeached if Democrats regain control of the House, where Republicans hold a razor-thin majority.

In a sign of momentum for Democrats, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report shifted 18 House races in the party’s favor this week, citing Trump’s unpopularity in polling and a recent streak of Democrat wins in special elections nationwide.>

Good ol' KayLie McEnany comes through with flying colours for her Fuehrer.

My view of the midterms--if they come off--is rather less sanguine than that of Carville, I devoutly hope he nails it.

<Well, if you're looking for purpose in the current circus, If you're seeking respect and attention,

If you're in need of a gig that'll help you feel big, come with me. Put some folks in detention.

Just last week was kind of rough.
I put a kid in cuffs and zip tied a woman to a van. We can sneak around town hunting working folks down. I hear they get a great benefit plan.

Join ICE. Boy, ain't it nice?
Join ICE. Take my advice.
If you're lacking control and authority,
Come with me and hunt down minorities.
Join ICE.

Well, I failed the academy.
The cops weren't having me.
The army didn't sound that fun,
So I found me a paramilitary operation
That was keen to hand me a gun.
See, I got picked on in school.
I never felt that cool.
There's a hole in my soul that just rages.
All the women turned me down.
They told me I was a clown.

Well, won't you look at me now?
I'm putting folks in cages at ICE.
They got great hours.
Join ICE for respect and power.
They got a sign on bonus of 50 grand.
They're in need of you needing to feel like a man.

Join ICE.
Join ICE.>

<President Donald Trump and his administration's top officials have said the Jan. 7 fatal shooting of Minnesota resident Renee Nicole Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer was provoked by Good's participation in a left-wing extremist network that directs people to attack federal officers.

But the administration has offered no public evidence tying Good − who was driving her own car when shot − to such a network.

Vice President JD Vance said at a Jan. 8 press briefing that Good’s death was “a tragedy of her own making and a tragedy of the far left who has marshaled an entire movement – a lunatic fringe – against our law enforcement officers.”

FBI Director Kash Patel went even further in an interview with the right-wing "Real America's Voice" online show the night of Jan. 15.

"I can tell you, generally speaking, that these protests, whether it's Minneapolis or LA or Portland or where have you, aren't spontaneous," Patel said. "They don't magically appear. ... Somebody has to pay for the transportation. Somebody has to pay for the signs."

He described protests against ICE's recently ramped up enforcement as an "organized, in my opinion, effort to criminally disrupt and cause chaos into our communities."

The FBI declined to comment when asked by USA TODAY for details underlying Patel's claims. The Justice Department did not respond to several requests for comment. And the White House doubled down on the claims about an organized conspiracy, without offering specifics.

“Left-wing organizations have fueled violent riots, organized attacks against law enforcement officers, coordinated illegal doxing campaigns, arranged drop points for weapons and riot materials, and more – all around the country," White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said. "The Trump Administration is employing a whole-of-government approach to get to the bottom of this vast network inciting violence in American communities.”

Good's family and friends have said she was a devoutly religious mother of three who was doing what she believed was her civic duty in supporting anti-ICE protests in her hometown of Minneapolis, where as many as 3,000 federal agents have swarmed the city looking for undocumented migrants as part of the Trump administration's deportation agenda.

"Our legal team is actively addressing persistent false reports circulating online that mischaracterize Renee Good’s background," said Antonio Romanucci, a lawyer who is representing Good's family. "Renee and [her wife] Becca Good were responsible community members who lived peacefully and did not engage in harmful conduct toward others, including the federal agents involved on Jan. 7, 2026."

Many domestic extremism experts, including former Justice Department and FBI specialists, say that while there may be a kernel of truth to claims about left-wing networks existing, there’s virtually no evidence for the Trump administration claims linking them to terrorism or to Good.

There is little if anything in the court record, or Justice Department prosecutions, to back up the claims of a well-funded national network of radical extremists plotting violent or disruptive confrontations with federal law enforcement.

"There's no Soros Foundation, kind-of master genius strategically dispensing money to all these organizations with some sort of master plan,” said Thomas Brzozowski, the former counsel for domestic terrorism for the Justice Department for nearly a decade until last September.

Brzozowski, the FBI counsel for domestic terrorism from 2010 to 2015 before moving to DOJ, told USA TODAY he found zero evidence while in government of organized left-wing violent extremist networks training people in how to weaponize their vehicles, throw bricks and do some of the other things alleged by Trump and top officials in his administration.

On Jan. 15, as protests over Good’s death continued, Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807, which gives the president the power to deploy U.S. Armed Forces to suppress rebellions and civil unrest.

“If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law & stop the professional agitators & insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the INSURRECTION ACT, which many Presidents have done …” Trump said in a social media post.

Trump has dramatically increased interior immigration enforcement, with top Trump immigration aide Stephen Miller saying in May that immigration officers would seek to arrest 3,000 people a day....>

<....Immigration enforcement officers have been mostly sent to Democrat-run cities or states, including Chicago, Los Angeles and Massachusetts. Some officers have manhandled and detained U.S. citizens and immigration enforcement officials have shot at least 11 people, including Good, which ICE has defended in many cases on the grounds that officers feared a vehicle was going to hit them.

In Minneapolis, Good served on the board of her young son’s school, which linked to documents encouraging parents to monitor ICE and directing them to training after ICE began ramping up raids there in recent weeks.

Videos of the Jan. 7 Minneapolis encounter show Good in the driver's seat of her Honda Pilot stopped in the middle of a suburban street when officers approached, ordering her to get out of the car. She began to drive away. As she did, veteran ICE officer Jonathan Ross, who had been standing in front of Good's vehicle, shot her at least three times at close range.

Within hours of the Jan. 7 incident, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem described Good’s actions at a news briefing as "domestic terrorism."

Good refused to obey orders to get out of her car, Noem said, and "weaponize[d] her vehicle" and "attempted to run over" Ross, who Noem said fired the fatal shots in self-defense.

Minnesota officials dispute Noem's account, saying videos show Good attempting to drive away from the officers as Ross fired the second and third shots from the side of the vehicle.

People like Good, Noem said, were being "trained and directed to run over" officers. And Good herself, Noem said, was part of a “coordinated” left-wing effort "targeting [officers] with her vehicle."

Vance alleged that Good was part of a “broader left-wing network to attack, to dox, to assault and to make it impossible for ICE officers to do their job.”

Neither Noem nor Vance has publicly identified any named group, legal case, investigative or intelligence finding, training program, funding source or communications network to demonstrate a left-wing extremist operation opposing immigration enforcement in Minneapolis or Good being involved in it.

'A dissonance' between Trump rhetoric and the facts?

Experts in extremism and terrorism law told USA TODAY that the administration’s rhetoric doesn’t match the publicly available evidence – or their understanding of how such domestic networks operate.

Most domestic extremism networks are fueled by right-wing grievances, and include groups of “nihilistic violent extremists,” white supremacists, neo-Nazis and anti-government agitators, Brzozowski and other extremism researchers and former federal law enforcement officials said.

For decades, right-wing domestic extremism and acts of terrorism has far outpaced those from left-wing groups, according to the FBI, Justice Department and outside groups.

Terrorists inspired by Islamist ideology are responsible for 87% of those murdered in attacks on U.S. soil since 1975, mostly from the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.

"Right-wingers are the second most common motivating ideology, accounting for 391 murders and 11 percent of the total," said a report last September by the libertarian CATO Institute. "The definition here of right-wing terrorists includes those motivated by white supremacy, anti-abortion beliefs, involuntary celibacy (incels), and other right-wing ideologies."

A report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies found an unusual uptick in incidents attributed to left-wing motivations in 2025, "although such violence has risen from very low levels and remains much lower than historical levels of violence carried out by right-wing and jihadist attackers."

“So there's a dissonance between what you hear the law enforcement folks saying under oath during congressional hearings, and this rhetoric” being used by the Trump administration, Brzozowski said.

The one notable left-wing exception, Brzozowski said, was the "Black Bloc" anarchist collectives that made headlines during the 1999 Seattle World Trade Organization summit and more recent events like the 2020 protests after a Minneapolis police officer murdered George Floyd, for setting fire to buildings and cars and attacking police....>

<....Protests and sporadic violence following controversial law enforcement incidents are not, by themselves, evidence of a professionalized or centrally directed terror organization, Brzozowski said. If such a left-wing network did exist, there would be arrests and charges associated with it, he added.

When officials start using terms like "domestic terrorism" without evidence of planning, coordination or organizational structure, “it strips the term of its meaning,” Brzozowski said in an interview.

Some evidence of 'coordinated organized anti-ICE' groups

Some analysts say there is indeed something to the Trump administration's claims of a coordinated organized network, though they stop short of describing them as violent agitators or domestic terrorists.

"There appears to be coordinated organized anti-ICE groups who are spearheading the protest movements around the country, and who provide the demonstrators with propaganda and material support, although I would downplay the Soros connection," Joshua Sinai, a national and international counterterrorism security analyst with more than 30 years of experience, told USA TODAY.

Sinai, who spent several years working at the Department of Homeland Security's National Operations Center during the George W. Bush administration, said he is currently studying all the politically motivated violent assailants in the United States and Australia since 2014.

Looking for connections that don't exist
Michael German, a former FBI agent domestic terrorism agent and Brennan Center for Justice terrorism and civil liberties analyst, said the Trump administration has been trying to gin up fake left-wing terrorist conspiracies since the beginning of Trump's first term, without success.

"There are the same accusations that were made against Black Lives Matter back in 2020 and against environmental groups" and against a broad range of other left-wing protest groups, German said.

German said law enforcement agencies in the Trump administration, and in past administrations too, have made "extraordinary efforts to identify these networks and has failed to produce indictments that reveals that such a network exists."

During the 2020 protests after the Floyd's murder, FBI agents went into New York Police Department detention facilities to interview arrested protesters in an effort to uncover such networks, German said. During protests around wildfires in Oregon and Northern California, officials from state, local and federal agencies at government "Intelligence Fusion Centers" reported "van loads of anarchists going into fire zones to either start fires or delay the response." The reports were later debunked.

German said he is "not aware of any" evidence of domestic terrorism connections to Good or other anti-ICE protesters.

"This is what they do, and how they've used this radicalization theory they've adopted, even though there's no empirical evidence to suggest it's accurate," German said, of the Trump administration's allegations about Good and an unspecified radical network. "It's an effort to criminalize protest and criminalize any political organizing that opposes existing government policy.">