He doesn’t need to “find” a way. Half of what he’s already doing is an abuse of executive power. He may just go ahead and do it and dare the Supreme Court to do anything about it. He’s been throwing around tariffs and threats of tariffs against just about every trading partner in the world, and every one of them is illegal because there’s no national emergency to justify this special power which is supposed to be the purview of Congress, not the executive branch.
Worth repeating. So well said.
I had no idea. Thanks for this.
Quite so. It would leave them unmoored. Which mates it hard to give them a face-saving “off-ramp” because the way they see it where does that off-ramp lead? It leads to a place where in their minds they’d be forever thinking everyone they see on the street is quietly crying “Shame! Shame!” at them, and they’ll stew waiting for the chance at payback. We’ve seen it all through history most notably in the Lost Cause myth: the need to affirm “I DID NOT DO ANYTHING WRONG!” and have others “respect” that.
This seems very closely related to the concept of motivated reasoning, defined as “the unconscious tendency to process information in a biased way to reach a desired conclusion or protect a pre-existing belief. It occurs when emotions, identity, or goals dictate the evaluation of evidence rather than objective facts, often involving confirmation bias and rationalization.”
I can understand both those concepts. What I cannot understand is how so many people seem to utterly fail to realize – or are in denial of – the fact that Trump is so obviously and clearly ineffably stupid, to the point of dysfunction and plainly evident dementia. He knows virtually nothing, he’s completely incurious about the world, he’s clearly a malignant narcissist who went to a meeting of world leaders in Davos recently and spent the time praising himself while insulting most of the other leaders, like a particularly belligerent self-important toddler who was never taught anything about manners.
He’s destroying international relationships and is the butt of jokes both at home and abroad. When his out-of-control untrained thugs murder innocent people right on the street, he blatantly lies about what happened despite clear video evidence to the contrary. And his cult just accepts it.
How can these people not see all these things that are right in front of their faces? Surely there must be a limit to how strongly psychological bias can distort reality in any person who still qualifies as sane. And we’re way past that point.
Can’t see what’s right in front of you if you close your eyes.
But if someone claims to clearly see all sorts of things but refuses to ever open their eyes, I would question their sanity.
Moderating:
Thread is drifting off the topic of The ICE shootings in Minneapolis with the last several posts. Please get back on topic or spin-off your topic.
Thank you.
This topic was automatically opened after 9 minutes.
I‘ve seen more videos from more angles. It is uncontrovertibly clear that Pretty had a phone in one hand and his other hand was empty. He was not making any aggression move towards the thugs. His gun had been removed. The thugs pulled their guns when he was already on the ground with 6,7,8 thugs on him, and the shots were fired in response to no arguable threat.
I would like to see those videos - and those of Good’s shooting - to be shown over and over, with stills printed in the paper, and a series of simple captions along the lines of, “Whether or not you agree with Good/Pretti, do you believe they deserved/needed to be killed?” And combine that with representations of the admin’s statements along the lines of “Pretti intended mass murder” and Good’s killer was fearing for his and fellow officers’ lives, juxtaposed with the actual images and captions saying, “This is not true.” And asking the admin and officials why their words directly conflict with the clear images.
Just flood the zone with the images. Sure, the diehards will find some reason to accept the admin’s blatant lies. But I have to believe such an approach would be able to chip of some small percentage of his supporters, and energize some portion of the apathetics.
Maybe I have too much faith in some of my fellow humans…
https://www.npr.org/2026/01/25/nx-s1-5687361/minneapolis-shooting-latest-alex-pretti
Can someone with journalism experience explain why the media takes this overly cautious and deferential approach? The article quotes Noem as saying Pretti was”brandishing a firearm” and “arrived on the scent to inflict maximum damage on individuals and to kill law enforcement.”
In a subsequent paragraph, the story says videos “don’t support” and “appear to contradict” officials’ accounts. Is there a reason they don’t say, “Videos clearly show that he was NOT brandishing a firearm.”
Later, they present general statements from Minn officials, but they don’t offer any accurate description of what the videos show.
It often seems to me that the media presents blatant admin lies, but then fails to objectively and factually state that, “Such statements are untrue and are clearly contradicted by the video. The admin has presented ZERO evidence to contradict the clear video.”
I guess I shouldn’t have chosen an article from such a rightwing source…
They are scared to death that they will lose access to the people in power if they tell the truth.
As far as Alex Pretti goes, they are going to have to fall back on ‘He shouldn’t have been out there in the first place’ because that’s all they have. The video speaks the truth and Alex was murdered.
I don’t trust media any more. I decided that in Nov /25.
All we can do is believe what we see.
The videos of these shootings is clear as glass.
If they are not altered. With AI we need to question everything.
Yeah, NPR… 
Well, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has already been dissolved. What else are they worried about?
Sing it, Paul!
…
It has been clear for a long time, to anyone willing to see, that the people running the federal government — Trump, Miller, Noem, Bovino and more — are monsters. It has been equally obvious that ICE and the Border Patrol are now filled with sadistic thugs. Yet many people — almost the entire GOP, everyone serving in the Trump administration, some Democrats, a significant part of the media — were too cowardly to admit the obvious.At this point, however, there are no more excuses. In a way the cowards and opportunists enabling Trump are more to blame for where we are than Trump and company themselves: monsters are monsters and can’t help themselves, but the enablers have a choice. And they have chosen, again and again, to accommodate and facilitate evil.
I wish I could believe that the last few weeks will be the last straw, but I don’t. To be honest, I wish I believed in Hell, because if it did exist, the enablers would be going there along with the monsters.
…
Agree with your whole post. To comment in particular:
It’s been said a zillion times that MAGA is a cult, but for most of these idiots, they are blending MAGA with other religious (fascistic white nationalist Christianity) and political (“Conservatism,” “Republicanism”) belief systems and identities to form a highly toxic whole. So in fighting for Trump, they are actually fighting for their entire view of self.
I repeat:
How to Reply as a linked Topic
Click Reply, in the upper left corner of the reply window is the reply type button, looks like a curving arrow point to the right.
Choose Reply as linked topic and it starts a new thread. As an example, you can choose GD, IMHO or The Pit for it.
That is actually the best method.
Moderating:
Sorry, hadn’t scrolled down far enough.
Oddly enough, TMZ of all places is pushing back. Right now I’m seeing headlines like " Minneapolis Killing New Video Shows Trump Administration Created False Story … Pretti Posed No Threat" and “Minneapolis Shooting New Video Shows Alex Pretti Disarmed Before Fatal Shooting”
In earlier articles they quoted Trump/Noem/DHS etc and accepted them at face value (neither agreeing or disagreeing, just printing them), later articles specifically state that what Trump and Noem are saying is the opposite of what can be seen in the videos. For example
As you know, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the incident “looks like a situation where an individual arrived at the scene to inflict maximum damage on individuals and to kill law enforcement.” Border Patrol Chief Gregory Bonvino also defended the shooting as justified, saying Pretti was there to massacre law enforcement. The video shows the opposite.
Never mind-off topic.
I feel like the New York Times is running out of fucks to give. Here’s a headline
Man Killed by Federal Agents in Minneapolis Was Holding a Phone, Not a Gun
Videos analyzed by The New York Times appear to contradict federal accounts of the shooting. The man, an I.C.U. nurse, was an American citizen with no criminal record, the city police chief said.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/us/minneapolis-shooting-ice