Trump Says He's Going to "Do Something on Greenland Whether They Like It or Not"

 

During a press briefing at the White House yesterday, President Trump declared, "We are going to do something on Greenland whether they like it or not. Because if we don't do it, Russia or China will take over Greenland, and we're not going to have Russia or China as a neighbor."

When I heard Trump say he intended to do something on Greenland whether they like it or not, I could not help but think he might have uttered similar language towards E. Jean Carroll and other women.

Of course, Trump is making it abundantly clear he does not care about the wishes of the people of Greenland who have made it utterly clear they do not want to be Americans. The wishes of the people of Greenland does not enter into Trump's thinking. For Trump, Greenland is just another property for him to take by hook or by crook.

Trump's claim that Russia and China will take over Greenland if he doesn't is also preposterous. While Russia has longstanding interests in the Arctic, Putin still has his hands full with Ukraine. Besides Trump's interests are in simpatico with Putin. A U.S. takeover of Greenland is bound to reap benefits for Russia not the least of which would be the collapse of NATO. China also has long had commercial interests and Greenland and elsewhere in the Arctic but Trump's claims of a Chinese military presence in the area are dubious. 

There is only one person in the world who wishes to change Greenland's current political situation.

That person is Donald Trump. No one else.

Did Renee Good's Killer Call Her a "F#*king B%^ch" After Shooting Her in the Head 3 Times?

 

I've seen the footage from the phone of ICE agent who shot and killed Renee Good. The ICE agent in question has been identified as Jonathan Ross. His father said of him:

You would never find a nicer, kinder person. He's a committed, conservative Christian, a tremendous father, a tremendous husband. I couldn't be more proud of him.

Last I checked, killing someone isn't supposed to be a very Christian thing to do. Nor is it very nice or kind.

It is worth noting that after Good was shot in the head thrice before crashing her car, someone can be heard muttering, "Fucking bitch!!!"

Now, it is not clear if it was Ross who uttered those words. If it wasn't then it doesn't say much about ICE's professionalism. Indeed, what can expect when officers shout, "Get out of the fucking car?"

Yet, under the circumstances, there is a distinct possibility that Ross did utter such profanity after killing Good. Talk about adding insult to injury. If it was him then it was an awfully unkind and unChristian thing to do immediately after breaking the Sixth Commandment. It certainly demonstrates someone of low moral character. However, it would seem low moral character is a prerequisite for ICE. Of course, it might very well be the case that Ross is more MAGA than Christian.

The same might hold true for JD Vance who claimed:

Many of you have been told this law enforcement officer wasn't hit by a car, wasn't being harassed, and murdered an innocent woman. The reality is that his life was endangered and he fired in self defense.

Vance does not know any of this to be true. It remains unclear whether Good struck Ross with her vehicle. She certainly did not "violently, willfully and viciously ran over the ICE officer" as falsely claimed by President Trump. But even if she had struck Ross with her vehicle, it did not warrant a public execution in broad daylight.

Of course, such facts could be brought to light if Ross was put on trial. But such facts will likely never truly be known as Vance has clearly stated that Ross and all ICE officers have "absolute immunity" and are not subject to the laws of this country.

As for Trump, he also claimed Good was "screaming". If anything, Good was cordial and polite making a point of telling Ross, "I'm not mad at you." Her demeanor is not that of someone about to engage in an act of domestic terrorism. Ross and his other ICE colleagues, however, were quite angry and saw fit to escalate the situation.

It is harrowing to look at this screenshot of Renee Good. These are the last seconds of her life, and she doesn't know it. 

When Vance Says ICE Has "Absolute Immunity" It Means They Have a License to Kill

 

Vice-President JD Vance made no bones about the unnamed ICE agent who shot and killed Renee Good in broad daylight in Minneapolis yesterday:

The precedent here is very simple. You have a federal law enforcement official engaging in federal law enforcement action. That’s a federal issue. That guy is protected by absolute immunity.

This presumably holds true for all ICE agents. In which case, it means Vance has given ICE a license to kill. ICE can engage in federal law enforcement action by any and all means necessary up to and including the use of lethal force. ICE, with the blessing the Trump Administration, gets to decide who lives and who dies in this country. 

It would seem this extends to other federal agencies such as the U.S. Border Patrol whose agents shot and wounded two people in Portland, Oregon.

As for the situation in Minneapolis, Vance's declaration of immunity for ICE agents further complicates matter as the FBI is preventing state and local officials from investigating Good's murder all but ensuring that ICE will never be held answerable for their actions in criminal court. In which case, the only relief available to Good's family is to sue ICE in civil court.

As Billy Jack famously said, "When policemen break the law, then there isn't any law. Just a fight for survival."

When politicians tell policeman they can break the law then there is no democracy or freedom. With each passing day, we are devolving from democracy to dictatorship, from freedom to tyranny.

 

Killing American Citizens is Now Part of ICE's Job Description

I wish I could say that I am surprised an ICE agent would shoot and kill an American citizen.

My only surprise is that it did not happen before now.

But now that it has happened, let there be no doubt that ICE is a paramilitary organization who sees fit to use violence as a first resort. Consequently, aside from removing people deemed by the Trump Administration as undesirable, killing American citizens is now part of ICE's job description.

If there is a situation, they will be sure to escalate it. There is no incentive nor reward for restraint.

President Trump gave Renee Good, the murdered mother of three, the Rob Reiner treatment describing her as "a professional agitator" who "violently, willfully and viciously ran over the ICE Officer".

In all likelihood, Renee Good was monitoring ICE activity. Perhaps she was blocking traffic. In that case, ICE could have enlisted the assistance of local law enforcement. Whatever the case, she did nothing which warranted being publicly executed in broad daylight. 

To compound ICE cruelty was their incompetence as Good was simultaneously told to leave the scene and get out of the car. After she was shot, ICE prevented Good from receiving medical aid.

As with George Floyd more than five years ago, none of this had to happen. Both situations could have been deescalated. Instead, lethal state violence against civilians has visited Minneapolis once more. 

Unfortunately, I do not believe this will be the last time ICE kills an American citizen. And when they do, the Trump Administration has a readymade playbook. Kristi Noem will accuse the victim of "domestic terrorism" while VP Vance will blame the victim as he today with Good calling her death "a tragedy of her own making."

Under the circumstances, I can only hope that Minnesota brings murder and criminally negligent homicide charges against the ICE agents involved. Of course, there is no guarantee of a conviction. But ICE's actions today which led to the death of Renee Good cannot go unanswered.

5 Years After January 6th, Trump Says He's Running Venezuela & Needs Greenland

(Credit: Alex Kent)

Five years have passed since President Trump incited his supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol in an effort to overturn an election he lost.

We have learned nothing from that day.

The Republican Party scarcely batted an eye. That might have not been so bad had a near majority of the voting public willingly placed him back into the White House so he could tear down the East Wing. Now less than a year after returning to the Oval Office, Trump tells us he is running Venezuela and now needs Greenland.

The White House, Venezuela and Greenland are nothing more than Trump's personal possessions irrespective of any wishes to the contrary by the American, Venezuelan and Danish peoples. Of course, because we Americans have twice permitted him the Oval Office, he believes he is entitled to anything and everything. In which case, what makes anyone think he would stop with Venezuela and Greenland. In which case, it is only a matter of time before Trump once again deems Canada to be the 51st state. 

Ousting Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela might have defensible had it provided Edmundo Gonzalez, the rightful winner of the 2024 Venezuelan presidential election to assume power. But Trump claimed that he and Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado didn't have the "support" or "respect" to govern.

Oh, they had the support and respect of the Venezuelan people. 

What they didn't have is the support and respect of Donald Trump. 

Despite Machado's efforts to placate Trump she is getting the Elise Stefanik treatment.

As for Greenland, it is all about weakening NATO and strengthening Russia. Trump wants to take a page out of Vito Corleone's book and make Denmark an offer it can't refuse. And if they do refuse, Stephen Miller has made it clear that Trump is prepared to take Greenland by military means and all but dared NATO to try to stop him. Danish PM Mette Frederiksen says an attempt by Trump to seize Greenland by force would mean the end of NATO. Nothing would please Trump and his superior Vladimir Putin more. 

Donald Trump's grip on American politics should have ended five years ago this evening. On that evening, Senator Lindsey Graham said, "All I can say is 'count me out'. Enough is enough." Five years later, if Senator Rand Paul is to be believed, Graham was the driving force behind Trump's efforts to oust Maduro. So much for enough is enough. Not only has Trump's grip on American been strengthened, that grip is now suffocating the democratic aspirations of people around the world.

Liz Cheney tried to warn us when she said that Trump "can clearly never be anywhere near the Oval Office again."

For this we have only ourselves to blame. If this is the sort of damage Trump can wrought less than a year into his second term, I shudder to think what will happen over the next 3 years. 

Worse still, we might see fit to give him a third bite at the apple, 22nd Amendment or no 22nd Amendment.

All of which will mean that we have still learned nothing. Perhaps we never will.

The Walz Are Caving in on Minnesota's Somali Community

The fact that Tim Walz, a man who could have been Vice-President of the United States, has abruptly abandoned seeking a third term as Governor of Minnesota is certainly an indication that his administration dropped the ball and did not meaningfully address alleged daycare fraud with the state's large Somali community.

Yet I suspect the breadth and depth of this fraud is not large enough to warrant the Trump Administration to freeze childcare payments to Minnesota and several other states. No doubt the Trump Administration was looking for a reason to freeze these funds, and they found it with little Nick Shirley's viral video of empty daycare centers though the claims have not been independently verified. VP Vance might think Shirley's "journalism" more worthy of a Pulitzer Prize than any of its winners. Yet let us never forget that Vance is the man who bragged about creating stories about Haitians in Ohio eating cats and dogs.

Nevertheless, this particular story has been lingering for a number of years. I suspect that it's catching fire now because the Trump Administration doesn't care much for Somalis whether they commit fraud or not with the President himself characterizing the community at large as "garbage." A story like this gives Trump and his acolytes an opportunity to pour fuel on the fire and promote hatred and contempt against Somalis. Some have gone as far as to accuse Somalis of using the fraudulently obtained money to fund terrorist groups like al-Shabaab. One of those making those accusations is Christopher Rufo who, last I checked, was peddling the "Haitians eat cats and dogs" bullshit.

When I attended Carleton University in Ottawa in the early 1990's, there was a sizable Somali community amid the civil war which had begun several years earlier. There were stories of welfare fraud and the Somali community tended to find itself singled out though it was truly no more guilty of welfare fraud than any other community. As with what is going on in Minnesota, there were undoubtedly kernels of truth, yet the community at large was being vilified. There have been large scale welfare fraud schemes by segments of the Mormon community in Utah and rightly so, but no one would entertain the idea of casting aspersions on the Mormon community at large and rightly so. Yet critical masses of society exercise no such discretion when it comes to non-white communities like Somalians.

With Walz not seeking a third term, there is speculation that longtime Minnesota Democratic Senator and former presidential aspirant Amy Klobuchar might run in his stead. The state has elected Klobuchar to the Senate five times, so it is not unreasonable to consider the possibility that Minnesota voters would elect her to statewide office as well as federal office. If Minnesotans do elect Klobuchar governor, I wonder if Klobuchar would appoint Walz to the Senate to serve out her term which would end in 2031?

Yet a story like this can linger in the ugliest way imaginable. Given the domination by Democrats in Minnesota in recent years, I could see a backlash against Klobuchar resulting in the election of an anti-Somali, anti-immigrant Republican Governor.

One Bad Man Removes Another Bad Man from Power So He Can Install a New Bad Man in His Place

 

The best way I can sum up President Trump's order to have U.S. military forces capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is that one bad man removed another bad man from power so he can install a new bad man in his place.

Trump basically said so himself:

We are going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious transition. It has to be judicious. We can't take a chance that somebody else takes over Venezuela that doesn't have the good of the Venezuelan people in mind.

What Trump really means is that Maduro's successor has to have the good of Trump in mind.

For her part, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi proclaimed that Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores "will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts." Bondi characterized the pair as "alleged international drug traffickers."

Well, former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez was a convicted international drug trafficker sentenced to 45 years in prison and yet Trump saw fit to issue him with a presidential pardon.

All of which means Trump doesn't give a shit about international drug trafficking. This is all about rewarding his loyal friends and punishing his enemies. Maduro has long been on Trump's shit list going back to his first term in office when he raised the possibility of military action against him.

Yet it must be said that Maduro is a bad man. Consider this analysis from the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect as of last month:

On 10 January 2025 Nicolás Maduro was sworn in for a third presidential term following elections on 28 July 2024, which were widely condemned as fraudulent. Independent tallies from polling centers showed an estimated 67 percent of votes for the leading opposition candidate. Throughout the electoral process and continuing to the present, the government has intensified its persecution of actual or alleged opponents, including ordinary citizens, opposition members, journalists and human rights defenders, to silence dissent and maintain power. Presidential elections were viewed by many Venezuelans as a vital opportunity for a long-term democratic transition and an end to the country’s decade-long multidimensional crisis. Following years of endemic corruption and the gradual erosion of the rule of law, in 2014 mass protests erupted in response to insecurity, hyperinflation and a lack of essential services. Security forces reacted with disproportionate force, torture and sexual violence.

Since then, the Venezuelan government, including the security and intelligence apparatus, has perpetrated systematic arbitrary detention, torture and ill-treatment, sexual and gender-based violence and short-term enforced disappearances targeting actual and perceived opponents. Various security forces have also allegedly perpetrated tens of thousands of extrajudicial killings in the name of combating crime, predominantly targeting men between 18 and 30 years-old living in low-income neighborhoods. Over the past decade, an estimated 8 million Venezuelans have left the country in what is considered the largest migration crisis in recent Latin American history.

But what does Trump care about arbitrary detention, torture and il-treatment much less sexual and gender-based violence? Forget about extrajudicial killings. Where it concerns Venezuela, Trump has proven more than willing to engage in extrajudicial killings of his own. I fear that Trump could very well succeed in turning Maduro and his wife into sympathetic figures. 

For now, I have two questions.

First, how will the Venezuelan people react? Will they be initially pleased with Maduro's removal only to grow discontent when life is no better in the next few months than it was under Maduro's regime leading to civil unrest? In which case, how long will it be before Trump order American troops to shoot Venezuelan civilians? Trump doesn't give a flying fuck about the Venezuelan people. He simply wants to install a leader who will do his bidding. If Venezuelan voters do not give the result he wants, then he will simply cry fraud and not allow the will of the people to stand.

Second, how will MAGA react? Will they rally around him? Perhaps in the short term. But how long will it be before the conversation returns to the Epstein files or to Jews in America? And what of Trump's pledge of "no new wars"? However awful Maduro might be, ousting him from power is an act of war.