Basement Dispatches: Here We Go Again

My Two Cents

I consider ICE and CBP to be one and the same, since their agents often don’t wear uniforms with proper identification, and both appear to be taking their orders from “Gestapo Greg” Bovino. As such, I use the “ICE” moniker for both.

Trump said there were dangerous violent criminals in Minneapolis. He was right; they’re a gang called ICE. In January 2025, Minneapolis reported just 3 murders. Murders committed by the ICE gang alone in January 2026 have nearly matched that 2025 number. For all of Trump’s bluster about getting dangerous criminals off the streets, he and his gang of thugs are on track to double the Minneapolis monthly homicide rate.

DHS is using the same playbook as they did for Rene Good; blame the victim; blame state and local leaders; blame the protesters calling them paid, radical insurrectionists. Rene Good and Alex Pritti were good people, they didn’t deserve to be murdered by their government. They don’t deserve to have their reputations smeared by lies spread by soulless Republicans.

On Sunday, they were still lying to the American people and to themselves:

• Nazi Cosplayer Bovino claimed Alex Pritti “came to massacre federal agents…The victims are the Border Patrol agents…The suspect put himself in that situation.”
• DHS Secretary Nazi Noem, like she did for Rene Good’s murder, called Alex Pritti “a domestic terrorist,” and claimed he had committed a felony by refusing to disengage from federal agents. Once again, the botox barbie is telling us not to believe our lying eyes.
• Stephen “Evil Incarnate” Miller said, “A would-be assassin tried to murder federal law enforcement” and he called protesters “terrorists”
• DHS announced they would conduct the investigation, not the FBI and we’re expected to trust them to conduct a fair investigation. This is not to imply we could expect a fair investigation from the FBI. FBI Director Krazy Eyes Patel claimed Alex “attacked” law enforcement officials saying, “You do not get to attack law enforcement officials in this country without any repercussions…So we are not messing around.”

Like in the Rene Good shooting, ICE refused to allow the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) access to the scene of the shooting, even when BCA returned with a judicial warrant. Federal agents took witnesses of the shooting to the Federal Whipple Building and took statements but we don’t know what the witness statements contained, nor what interrogation techniques were used to obtain them. At this point there is no trust in the federal system.

Pam Bondi’s political blackmail letter to Minnesota Governor Walz showed why ICE is in Minneapolis. In the letter she lists three demands she implies would end the ICE occupation if met. In her letter, she offers a deal, (1) End sanctuary policies, (2) hand over the state’s voter registration files and (3) Medicaid/SNAP records to DOJ and we might pull ICE out of Minneapolis. The latter two have nothing to do with ICE, but the voter registration files have everything to do with the 2026 elections.

Next Steps:

AI-Generated

• BCA needs to be allowed to conduct a proper investigation, given access to evidence and witness statements that ICE took from the scene
• ICE needs to get the fuck out of Minneapolis. At this point they serve no purpose other than to inflame tensions. Protests need to stay peaceful. The last thing the resistance movement needs is for someone to shoot an ICE agent
• Senate Democrats must refuse to pass funding any bill containing DHS funding and if necessary shutdown the government. Any Democrat that votes to approve the current funding bill before the Senate this week while it still contains the DHS funding package must suffer the consequences to include removal from all committee assignments. The big ugly bill that passed Trump’s tax cuts, funded DHS with more than $170 billion and ICE alone with $75 billion...an amount larger than the entire annual Marine Corps’ annual budget. No additional funds should be budgeted for ICE in 2026. ICE has all the funding it needs for this year and the next
• Congress must pass legislation requiring a judicial warrant for immigration agents to enter a home and that an administrative warrant is not adequate
• Kristi Noem must be impeached
• ICE only came into existence in 2003 as part of the creation of DHS. That needs to be re-imagined. ICE should not be performing crowd control of protesters. They aren’t trained for it and it’s not their assigned mission
• Congress needs to pass immigration reform. The country is worse off when we deport immigrants who don’t have criminal records and who have put down roots in their community. There is a compromise where border security is enhanced and a humane way forward to legal status for immigrants that have shown themselves to be good neighbors

After the Kent State massacre of anti-war protesters in 1970 the government and its allies used their power to pushed out a false narrative and turned public opinion decidedly against the protesters. Imagine how different that might have turned out if student protesters had today’s smartphones and the internet at their disposal. That’s why ICE has been attacking observers with smartphones.

Is this an inflection point? A tipping point? A turning point? The beginning of the end? Maybe. When the rats begin scrambling to get off the sinking ship, we’ll know for sure.