Author: tomdolen

The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CXXII. – Support Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. – Save. YOUR. Own. Job, Home, Security.

~ tomdolen


*** “Trump lacks the emotional stability, knowledge, critical-thinking skills, and judgments to be commander-in-chief….More surprising than Trump’s lack of knowledge about geopolitics is his ignorance of economics, the field in which he was given a bachelor’s degree….The Trump presidency is about Trump. Period. Full stop. He says so himself all the time….His entire life Trump has been a con artist.” [ Pulitzer Prize winner David Cay Johnston: “It’s Even Worse Than You Think” ]

Trump wants to control the U.S. Federal Reserve. ALL evidence, and many economic experts and historians say this would be a DISASTER – for YOU. Some evidence follows.

It is. IMPERATIVE that Jerome Powell remains on the Federal Reserve Board. – for YOUR sake. Please, plead,, beg, urge him to remain until his full term ends in January, 2028. Please contact him in a manner of yourchoosing:
mail: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
20th Street and Constitutional Avenue N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20551
email: use the Federal Reserve Board website
phone: 888-851-1920; 202-974-7008
TTY: 877-766-8533
Fax: 877-888-2520

Tell Mr. Powell “America needs you on thenFederal Reserve Board. Please stay for your full term. Thank you for your outstanding service to America.”

Consider the following so YOU know some of the circumstances. – what financial experts and historians are saying would be likely results if Donald John Trump controlled America’s central. They are NOT good. – for. YOU.

1] “But the larger, longer-term and probably irreversible danger would be an erosion of the United States as the financial center of the world, and the role of the U.S. dollar as the world’s undisputed reserve currency. In this regard, Trump and his minions seem oblivious to the havoc they could create. Either that, or these are the intended outcomes, which is more cynical and more malevolent than I even give these people credit for.” [ Edward Lotterman; “This is how the Fed ends, with a whimper”; St. Paul Pioneer Press; 1/18/26 ]

2] “Powell defends the Fed – and the nation”. [ John Rash; Minnesota Star Tribune; 1/17/26 ]:
A] “..scores of former Fed chairs, Treasury secretaries, leaders of international institutions and even a few Republican senators, sensing an attack not just on Powell but on Fed independence. lent their voices..”..an unprecedented attempt to use prosecutorial attacks to undermine {the Fed’s} independence,”..”
B] “History is replete with ruinous political interference in central bank matters. Most infamously in interwar Germany, whose hyperinflation gave rise to radicalization [and Hitler]…as well as Turkey, Argentina and Venezuela in the postwar era..”
C] “This is how monetary policy is made in emerging markets with weak institutions, with highly negative consequences for inflation and the functioning of their economies more broadly. It has no place in the United States whose greatest strength is the rule of law, which is the foundation of our economic success.”

3] “What a Trump-Controlled Fed could Do to the Economy”. [ Jeff Sommer; New York Times ]
1] “Veering sharply downward from an appropriate interest rate would probably affect the economy in stages, Mr. Duy told me.” “The impact on inflation might not show up for 10 to 12 quarters,’ or up to three years,,”..”
2]. “Then here are broader repercussions. I’d expect a loss of public confidence in the Fed. And if the institution were no longer functioning independently, it could lose some of its capacity for quick, deft responses to emergencies.”
3]. “A political Fed might not be able to safeguard the value of the dollar, which is the linchpin for the entire global financial system. Investors around the world would be less likely to keep their money in U.s. assets. That would weaken the U.s. economy and hurt people in the United States..”
4] “U.S. consumers would have to live in an environment in which higher inflation – and periodic efforts to tame it. – became the norm…..”living standards would drop..”

4]. “In 1st year of his second term, Trump leaves economic stamp” [ Ben Casselman; New York Times; 1/22/26 ]:
1] “..economists from across the ideological spectrum warn that Trump is setting the country on a path that will, in the long run, leave the economy less dynamic, the financial system less stable and Americans less prosperous in the decades ahead. “We’re weakening the special sauce that made America so great,”…..”
2] “..Trump has begun his second term with what amounts to an all-out assault on many of the institutions and policy paradigms that have long been seen by leaders of both major parties as the foundations of American economic strength.”
3] “..many economists..are much more worried about Trump’s efforts to undermine the Fed’s independence, which, if successful, could make it harder for the central bank to rein in inflation – or, in a potentially even more damaging scenario, cause investors to lose faith in the value of government-issued bonds or the dollar……They are worried about yawning budget deficits…..They are worried that by defunding universities and revoking student visas, the Trump administration will make the U.S. a less attractive place to do scientific research. And they are worried that by using his powers to attack his enemies and reward his friends, Trump will erode the system of rules and laws that for decades has made the U.s, the safest place for investors to bet their money and for entrepreneurs to build their businesses.”

*** “The Trump presidency is about Trump. Period. Full stop. He says so himself..” [ David Cay Johnston ]

The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CXXI – “When ICE comes for our kids’ caregivers, no one is safe.”

~ tomdolen


***. “This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs: When he first appears, he is a protector.”
[ Plato ]

This post is the 10th in a series describing to YOU the effects of ICE thugs on ordinary people – like YOU. Outside Renee Good and Alex Prettti. MURDER. videos. Effects often invisible – but the trauma inflicted on individuals, neighborhoods, communities, cities will NOT end when ICE thugs and Trump DICTATORSHIP cease DELIBERATELY causing chaos and fear.

These posts are a WARNING. – what is happening throughout Minnesota can easily happen in YOUR state, if “our” 13-year old president and Rasputins around him decide they ‘NEED’ to do it.

Below is a BEGINNING list of countless indignities inflicted on Minnesota – in the name of “law and order” – by ICE thugs: “For those who doubt it, let me explain why observing ICE is not a crime” [ Ronn Seim; Minnesota Star Tribune; 1/28/26 ]. Some excerpts:

1] “Reasonable people can and should debate what role, if any, ICE should be playing in Minnesota. But given the role ICE is playing, reasonable people can easily understand and defend the presence of peaceful observers and protestors. The stated, specific [‘official”] purpose of the ICE operation in Minnesota seems to be a moving target.”

*** “Truth is the most precious thing. That is why we should ration it.” [ Lenin ]

2]. “What we have witnessed includes:
1] “Masked agents outfitted in full combat gear, typically without visible badge number or name tags, roaming our streets and neighborhoods…
2] “Conducting random racial profiling of adults and minors, often as they simply go about their daily routines…
3] “Refusing to identify themselves or give legal reasons for stops…
4]. “entering homes and private spaces without judicial warrants – in some cases, breaking into residences on the basis of obsolete addresses…
5] “Typically lacking transparency regarding identities, location or status of detainees…
6]. “Exaggerating or lying about criminal histories for either targets or detainees…
7]. “Similarly, taking credit for capturing/arresting criminals who were actually turned over to federal agents by Minnesota law enforcement – sometimes months or years earlier. – while simultaneously accusing local law enforcement of not cooperating…
8]. “Physically and verbally assaulting people they view as uncooperative…
9]. “Declaring that the use of chemical irritants is a de-escalation tactic [Greg Bovino ]…
10 “Hauling innocent citizens in their underwear out of their homes in front of children…
11]. “Detaining American citizens for hours, then releasing them without charges or even winter clothing, often miles from their homes or from where they were picked up…
12]. “And snatching parents, often without warrants, outside schools or at bus stops in front of their traumatized children.”

***. “The best political weapon is the weapon of terror. Cruelty commands respect. Men may hate us. but we don’t ask for their love; only for their fear.” [ Reichsfuhrer SS, Heinrich Himmler ]

3] “..consider what we have seen and heard in the aftermath of the shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Immediately following each shooting – and before local officials had offered any opinions about the incidents….federal voices have slandered the victims, calling them domestic terrorist acting with evil intent, and offered descriptions of the circumstances that contrasted radically with video evidence that captured the incidents from a wide variety of angles.”

***. “Power is tearing human minds in pieces and putting them together again in shapes of your own choosing.”
[ George Orwell: “1984” ]

4] “ultimately, after a day or two, perhaps realizing no sane person can buy these outrageous and publicly available accusations, they act as though they never made them [multiple times] and pivot to some version of blaming local leaders [Gov. Tim Walz, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey]. or law enforcement for inciting or letting the situation get out of hand, of blaming the victim for being someplace they shouldn’t have been as though that justifies shooting them. or sort of admitting that mistakes can happen and it’s tragic, but what can you do about it? Without any real acceptance of blame or apology.”

*** “There is no possibility I have made a mistake.” [ Adolf Hitler ]

5]. “The pattern is one of both disingenuity and duplicity – claiming every immigration enforcement action is lawful, whose objectives are public safety and punishment of criminals, and decrying lack of cooperation by local law enforcement; all while neither maintaining nor sharing databases of activity and detention with local law enforcement, while themselves violating laws as well as norms of human decency in pursuit of political retribution.”

*** “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” [George Orwell: “1984”]

6] “To Dokoupil’s credit, he pressed the question, asking if Homan – in his 20-plus years of experience. – could remember a situation where he concluded, once an investigation was complete, that an officer had used excessive force. Homan said never. Dokoupil responded by saying he imagined many viewers – and even himself. – had to be a bit incredulous with Homan’s answer. Homan repeated, never.” [NOTE: do YOU suppose – had there been no witnesses, no videos – that maybe, the Trump DICTATORSHIP’s version might be: ‘shot while trying to escape.”???}

*** “The Party told you to reject the evidence in your eyes and ears…it was their final, most essential command.”
[ George Orwell: “1984” ]

Note: NOW, there can be NO doubt – the Trump DICTATORSHIP is at war with the American people. For over a year, YOU have seen and heard more than enough evidence of this FACT. This site alone has made 121 posts illustrating to YOU a variety of EYEWITNESS reports, reports by respected legal and law enforcement professionals, economists, judges, Constitutional experts, reports from foreign leaders…….etc, etc….. YOU are living in the midst of a COUP, planed for decades, now carried out by “Project 2025” reactionaries. The Trump DICTATORSHIP, abetted by reactionary state leaders. – is. NOW. – planning on subverting the November 3, 2026 elections to ensure the Trump DICTATORSHIP maintains control of “our” federal government.”

*** “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” [ Dr. martin Luther King, Jr.; 1963 ]

Among the Trump DICTATORSHIP’s very first actins was firing ANYBODY who could hold them accountable – like inspectors general. Throughout this recent year, the Trump DICTATORSHIP has attacked law firms, universities, businesses to FORCE them to obey or else. YOU are now witnessing, live, the Trump DICTATORSHIP effort to make the people of Minnesota, the state, the cities. – OBEY. “Trump’s vision”. – or – ‘my way or the highway.”

*** “When and if fascism comes to America it will not be labeled ‘made in Germany,’ it will not be marked with a swastika; it will not even be called fascism; it will be called, of course, ‘Americanism’..” [ Halford Luccock ]

The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CXX. – “When ICE comes for our kids’ caregivers, no one is safe”, IX

~ tomdolen


*** “Here in America we are descended in blood and spirit from revolutionaries and rebels – men and women who dared to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.” [ Dwight D. Eisenhower; WW II General; Republican; 34th U.S. President ]

This post is the 9th in a series to describe to YOU effects of ICE thugs on ordinary people. Away from the MURDER videos of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Effects often invisible – but the trauma inflicted on people, neighborhoods, communities, cities will NOT end when ICE thugs and Trump DICTATORSHIP cease to DELIBERATELY cause chaos and fear.

These posts are a WARNING – what is happening throughout Minnesota can easily happen in YOUR state, if “our” 13-year old president and Rasputins around him decide they ‘NEED’ to do it.

Following are excerpts from “letters to the editor” from ordinary Minnesotans. [“Letters to the editor”; St. Paul Pioneer Press; 1/18/26]:

A] “I don’t understand why we tolerate this”
1] “I am writing not to argue policy, but to ask a human and moral question that I cannot stop asking: How are we tolerating this?….watching parents taken from their homes, children left in shock and confusion, neighbors disappearing overnight. – and not be disturbed enough to demand something better?”
2] “I am trying, sincerely to understand how people of good will – people who care about family, order and the rule of law – can witness scenes of armed agents taking someone away in front of their children, or read about a woman killed in the course of enforcement, and do not feel compelled to say: This is not how a humane society should function.”

3] “do the supporters of our current system know anyone outside their own social or economic circles who is being affected? Do they know what it looks like when a child comes home from school and their parent is simply gone? Do they know what it does to a community when people are afriad not only of being taken, but even leaving their homes – afraid to go to work, to school, to the doctor, or to church – and when enforcement actions are disrupting staff and children in our schools?

4] “I find myself thinking about Anne Frank’s words describing how people simply “disappeared,”…I am troubled by how familiar the pattern feels: people removed, families silenced by fear, the rest of society slowly learnig not to look too closely..”

5]. “I understand immigration is complex…But the way we enforce the law also matters….A system that relies on fear, force and family separation as tools cannot be called orderly or just – only cruel.”

6] “What troubles me most is not disagreement. It is indifference. It is the sense that many have become so accustomed to this machinery that they no longer see the human cost, or no longer feel responsible because it is being done “legally,” “federally,” or “by someone else.” But moral responsibility does not disappear just because harm is bureaucratized.’

7] “..we can refuse to normalize what is happening. We can refuse to accept this is the best we can do. We can demand accountability, transparency, restraint and above all, humanity.”
8] “..I am deeply grateful to all who are standing up in protest – peacefully, courageously and publicly – to insist that our neighbors’ lives and families matter and that we can do better than this.”

9] “I am asking how anyone can watch families being torn apart, children traumatized, communities destabilized, and now people being killed – and not feel called to say: This must change. If we cannot feel that, then something more dangerous than any immigration crisis is happening to us.” [ J. W. S. ]

B]. “For decent and lawful enforcement, but not this”
1] “Last week a neighbor of my friend in St. Paul was picked up and detained by ICE. The spouse of a teacher at the school where I volunteer was also picked up and detained by ICE. Both were born in America and have no criminal history. They are NOT illegal immigrants and NOT the “worst of the worst’ of illegal immigrants purportedly being targeted by ICE agents at the direction of President Trump.”

2]. “I believe ICE is in Minnesota to terrorize and traumatize our citizens because President Trump hates Rep. Ilhan Omar and Gov. Tim Walz….Disagreeing with your political opponents is one thing, terrorizing their constituents is quite another.”

3] “..President Trump’s blatant prejudicial violation of the 4th Amendment of the Constitution to punish political enemies and law-abiding citizens is, very simply wrong.”

C] “The Risk”
1] “My family has realized that no one, especially innocent people, is immune from the ongoing negative interactions and complications caused by the ICE presence in Minneapolis. I want to present the fear, daily life routines needing to be changed and adjustments we are dealing with, realizing that many have it far worse.”

2] “We have been alerted to the risk that one of our family members faces based on a learning disability that makes it difficult for her to deal with complex issues requiring lengthy explanations. Several years ago my husband and I decided to complete our family with a fourth child, who would be a special needs child adopted from Korea.”

3] “Her limitations make it difficult for her to comprehend and address complex issues and reply in a perceived timely manner. If her bus or Lyft transportation is detained by ICE because of other passengers or because many of the drivers appear to be Muslim or because she looks Asian or for any reason and she would be questioned, she would be at great risk to be taken to a facility for “further interrogation” and because she would not have been able to explain that she is a U.S. citizen or answer rapid questioning.” [ J.G. ]

NOTE: These are NOT isolated, “one off” stories. Stories like these continue to become public. American CITIZENS picked up, ordered to present identification. [ including disabled U.S. veterans, out of uniform police officers, etc. ], detained for hours, dropped off somewhere with NO apology, perhaps their unlocked vehicle still running; property damaged, people standing and watching DELIBERATELY sprayed with chemicals, CITIZENS exercising Ist Amendment rights to photograph having phones knocked out of their hands, sprayed with chemicals, people following ICE thugs having vehicles surrounded – perhaps being put into an “accident,” perhaps dragged out of their vehicle, perhaps roughed up and threatened, etc., etc. etc…………..

this site has now posted 9 of these stories – more will likely follow – because ICE thugs continue to create these atrocities – to UNARMED American CITIZENS, on. a daily basis.

*** “It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority.” [ Benjamin Franklin ]

***. “Loyalty to country always. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.” [ Mark Twain ]

The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CXIV – “When ICE comes for our kids’ caregivers, no one is safe”, VIII

~ tomdolen


*** “Judge not, that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you shall be judged, and the measure you give shall be the measure you receive.” [ Matthew 7: 1-2 ]

This post is the 8th in a series to describe toYOU the effects of ICE thugs on ordinary people. Away from the MURDER videos of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Effects often invisible – but the trauma inflicted on people, neighborhoods, communities, cities will NOT end when ICE thugs and Trump DICTATORSHIP cease DELIBERATELY causing chaos and fear.

These posts are a WARNING – what is happening throughout Minnesota can easily happen inYOUR state, if “our” 13-year old president and Rasputins around him decide they ‘NEED’ to do it.

Following is a commentary on what ICE is doing in RURAL Minnesota: “Rural Minnesotans, like ICE agents are also finding secrecy necessary” [ Karen Tolkkinen; Minnesota Star Tribune; 1/18/26 ]. Excerpts below:

6] “People are terrified out here,” she said. “It’s like living in a novel back in the 1930s, the way ICE is. At the time the Nazis came to power and how they would take people from homes, that’s how I feel.”

10] “ICE is operating with a complete lack of transparency and accountability, both ingredients for abuse of power.”

9] “The problem is that ICE is cherry picking the data it releases I asked the agency for information about the guy picked up in Perham. ICE didn’t provide it. I asked about a guy detained in Detroit Lakes. Silence. Reports are that the agency has detained tribal members. Crickets.”

*** “It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.” [ Machiavelli ]

1] “If you have a hankering for Mexican food in greater Minnesota nowadays, good luck….The presence of secretive and sometimes aggressive ICE agents has driven owners and staff of Mexican and Chinese restaurants underground in many places.”

2] “On the windows of Casa Jalisco in Alexandria, near an apologetic sign scrawled on notebook paper, community members have stuck a flurry of pastrel notes bearing messages objecting to ICE.”

3]. “Restaurant closings are among the most visible signs that immigration agents are working in rural Minnesota.”

4] “Just as ICE agents are operating under a cloak of secrecy, people in greater Minnesota, too, are finding secrecy necessary. They are unwilling for their names to be published for fear of what ICE could do to them or to their loved ones.” [ Rural Minnesota is OVERWHELMINGLY WHITE. ]

*** “The fanatic cannot be weaned away from his cause by an appeal to his reason or moral sense…He cannot be convinced, but only converted.” [ Eric Hoffer: “The True Believer” ]

5] “One Detroit Lakes woman asked that I do not use her name because she doesn’t want to lead agents to refugees she has been helping who are here legally but too afraid to leave their homes. She said she wishes people around the state knew what was happening in west-central Minnesota.”

7] “It doesn’t surprise me that in rural Minnesota, people are trying to help….Some protests here have drawn crowds that span multiple city blocks.”

8] “What does surprise me is that in our state’s deep red farm country, there’s not ore opposition to the influx of federal agents. I lived in uber-conservative Idaho just three years after the deadly Ruby Ridge shootout and two years after the Branch Davidian siege in Waco, Texas. I remember well the anguish and resentment directed at the federal government..”

11]. “Maybe conservative Americans are once again ready for the heavy hand of government if it accomplishes their goals.”

12] “a recently posted video from Alexandria shows a visibly shaken, brown-skinned man outside El Loro Mexican restaurant. he was clutching his passport after an interrogation by masked men…They were on a fishing expedition, singling out people with brown skin who didn’t deserve to be hassled by masked men any more than any white Minnesotan. At least someone filmed it. Bravo to them.”

***. “To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
[ Theodore Roosevelt; Republican; 26th U.S. President ]

The Trump Dictatorship – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CXIX – “When ICE comes for our kids’ caregivers, no one is safe”, VII

~ tomdolen


***. “There never was any heart truly great and generous, that was not also tender and compassionate.”
[ Robert South ]

This post is the 7th in a series to describe to YOU the effects of ICE thugs on ordinary people. Away from the MURDER videos of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Effects often invisible – but – trauma inflicted on people, neighborhoods, communities, cities will NOT end when ICE thugs and Trump DICTATORSHIP cease DELIBERATELY causing chaos and fear.

These posts are a WARNING – what is happening in Minnesota can easily come to YOUR state, if “our’ 13-year old president and Rasputins around him decide they ‘NEED” to do it.

Below are some “letters to the editor,” published January 9, 2026 [Minnesota Star Tribune] under this heading: “Despairing our fractured reality.” Some excerpts:

1] “We are in the middle of some kind of Shakespearean tragedy. If you doubt this, just listen to..Kristi Noem and President Donald Trump’s version…..The three witches in Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”…fog and filthy air…..In another Shakespearean tragedy, “Hamlet,”…words, words, words…….Thus January 6, 2021 becomes a “love fest,” the Minneapolis ICE killing is prompted by “an act of domestic terrorism”…….. [V.A.]

2] “an abrupt about-face by the FBI to exclude Minnesota bureau of Criminal Apprehension from a joint investigation…does not bode well for my trust..” [S.W.}

3] “To our brothers and sisters in blue: You have my deepest sympathy. You have been placed in the crosshairs of this crisis not of your making.” [M.J.C.]

4] “So thankful for Gov. Tim Walz, Frey and Police Chief Brian O’Hara. Thank you.” [l.K.]

5] “Who aren these guys…2,000 ICE “officers” descend on our state………… Who are these people? What training do they have……..how many are actually felons or criminals?” [J.C.]

6] “They said they were sending an additional 2,000 ICE agents to address “fraud’ in Minnesota. Did they send auditors? Did they send CPAs? No. They sent armed thugs……” [P.B.]

7] “On Jan.7, ICE agents swarmed an elementary school in south Minneapolis attended by my grandchildren…..As children watched. and they took parents and staff into custody – with no regard for the children’s welfare….this operation was about power and intimidation, sowing chaos….Is this really the America we wanted…. [D.F.]

*** “I have one yardstick by which I test every major problem – and that yardstick is: is it good for America?”
[ WW II General; Republican; 34th U.S. President. Dwight D. Eisenhower ]

The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CXIII. – “When ICE comes for our kids’ caregivers, no one is safe”, VI

~ tomdolen


“Give me your tired, your poor. Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeminh shores, Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”
[ Emma Lazarus: Inscription on The Statue of Liberty ]

This post is the 6th in a series to describe to YOU the effects of ICE thugs on ordinary people. Away from the Renee Good and Alex Pretti MURDER videos, much other abuse is bveing done to ordinary people. Effects often invisible – but the trauma inflicted on people, neighborhoods, communities, cities will NOT end when ICE thugs & Trump DICTATORSHIP cease to DELIBERATELY cause chaos and fear.

These posts are a WARNING – what is happening throughout Minnesota can easily happen in YOUR state if “our” 13-year old president & Rasputins around him decide they ‘NEED’ to do it.

This is the story of one woman, a child refugee, now deported: “One Minnesota woman’s deportation story”. [ Ka Vang; Minnesota Star Tribune; 1/11/26 ]. Excerpts below:

9] “The deportation system is like brain fog: paperwork no one explains, flights no one sees, lives erased quietly enough to avoid scrutiny. It assumes the public will stop paying attention once someone disappears..”

3] “I feel betrayed byAmerica,’ she told me. Though she never became a citizen, she was a lawful permanent resident with the right to work and reside in the U.S.”

6]. “She described a deportation process that was confusing and deeply dehumanizing. “I wasn’t sure of my rights because no one clearly explained them to me,’ she told me. She was shackled at her wrists and ankles in detention centers and while being transported. Her journey took her from the U.S. to Georgia, then to South Korea, and finally to Laos. Along the way she traveled with others being deported to India and other parts of Asia.”

***. “Foreign immigration, which in the past has added so much to the wealth, development of resources, and increase of power to this nation, the asylum of the oppressed of all nations, should be fostered and encouraged by a liberal and just policy.” [ Platform plank of the National Union {Republican} Party, 1864 ]

1]. “She grew up here and lived most her life here. her family is here. And yet, last year, she was deported to Laos….a country she barely knows.”

2] “I am telling her story because Minnesotans deserve to understand what deportation actually does to a human life..”

4] “Asian Americans are often missing from immigration debates, squeezed between simplistic narratives of “good immigrants” and “criminals.” Yet, since 2002, more than 17,000 southeast Asians have received final orders of removal..”

5] “Many arrived as refugee children fleeing war and genocide. They built lives here, paid taxes here, raised families here. Decades later, they were marked for deportation over old convictions – often nonviolent offenses tied to poverty, trauma and youth.”

7] “When she landed in Laos, she was told she needed a local sponsor to leave the detention center…She had no one in Laos to help her.”

8] “She spent a month in a hotel, then moved closer to the area where her ancestors once lived – not because her family is there, but because it feels faintly familiar. Her entire immediate family remains in the U.S.. She is lonely. She is afraid. Trust comes slowly….She survives now on money sent from family in the U.S. when they can manage it.”

*** “In the name of noble purposes men have committed unspeakable acts of cruelty against one another.”
[ Senator J. William Fulbright ]

The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CXII – Moral Clarity in Minnesota on MLK Day

~ tomdolen


***. “I am very doubtful whether history shows us one example of a man, who having stepped outside rational morality and attained power, has used that power benevolently.” [ C. S. Lewis ]

this post presents excerpts from. “On this MLK Day, a letter from Minnesota” [Haley Taylor Schlitz; Minnesota Star Tribune; 1/19/26 ]: “To Dr. King and my fellow Minnesotans..” :

3]. “We are encouraged to treat what is happening here as a local disturbance. A Minnesota problem. A protest problem. Something to be managed. But what is happening here is not simply “tension.” It is an argument about the character of public power. When a president threatens a state with “reckoning and retribution,” he is not using the language of neutral law. he is using the language of punishment. A government can enforce laws without promising vengeance. When it promises vengeance, it tells you what it believes the law is for.””

5] ‘..power does not only suppress through force. It also suppresses through framing. It trains the public to treat discomfort as disorder, and disorder as the real threat. It persuades decent people that their primary civic duty is to keep things calm, even if the calm is purchased with someone else’s fear.”

8] “You insisted on the interrelatedness of communities, and you rejected the narrow “outside agitator” idea. You insisted that no one in this country should be treated as an outsider anywhere within it….But this is not a Minnesota-only problem. It is a national test with a Minnesota address.”

11] “So what does moral clarity look like in Minnesota this MLK Day? It looks like refusing to confuse quiet with peace, and refusing to treat fear as normal. It looks like insisting that investigations be credible, independent and transparent enough to earn public trust, not simply being declared trustworthy by authority. It looks like leaders who speak with discipline and courage, and citizens who do not outsource their conscience.”

*** “Our character is but the stamp on our souls of the free choices of good and evil we have made through life.”
[ Cunningham Geikie ]

1] “This year, MLK Day arrives with masked federal agents fanning out across theTwin Cities and beyond, with unmarked vehicles and street-level operations reshaping daily life. and with a growing chill…”

2]. “Dr. King, we are not living in your era, but we are facing a familiar question: “Is ‘order” being used to protect the public, ot to protect power from accountability?”

4] “whatever your politics, you can feel the difference between a justice system that invites public trust and a justice system that treats the public concern as something to be contained.”

6] “Minnesota is drowning in effects-talk. We are being pulled into arguments about tone, about disruption, about whether grief is being expressed the “right” way. You can hear it…..You can see it…..And you can feel it…..what it means to live in a state where daily life is being deliberately reshaped by fear.”

7] “But the cause is what keeps demanding attention. The integrity of an investigation….The fear many communities feel….and when citizens and lawful residents begin to move through public life as if visibility itself is risk.”

9] “If a president can promise retribution against a state for its politics, that is not just rhetoric. it is a message to every other state. if federal institutions can be pressured into secrecy or political targeting, and the public is told to accept silence as a strategy, that is not just an internal dispute. It is an instruction about what accountability will look like from here forward.”

10] “If the new dream is a nightmare, it is not because people are speaking out. It is because trhe public is being trained to accept intimidation as governance, and to accept silence as legitimacy.”

***. “The Aggregate happiness of the society, which is best promoted by the practice of virtuous policy, is, or ought to be, the end of all government.” [ George Washington; 11/1/1790 ]

The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CXI. – “When ICE comes for our kids’ caregivers, no one is safe”, V

~ tomdolen


***. “Is life so dear or peaceful so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” [ Patrick Henry; 3/23/1775 ]

This post is thre 5th in a series to describe to YOU the effects of ICE thugs on ordinary people. Away from the Renee Good and Alex Pretti MURDER videos, others suffer indignities. Effects often invisible – but the trauma inflicted on people, neighborhoods, communities, cities will NOT end whern ICE thugs and Trump DICTATORSHIP cease to DELIBERATELY inflict chaos and fear.

These posts are a WARNING – what is happening throughout Minnesota can easily happen in YOUR state if “our” 13-year old president and Rasputins around him decide they ‘NEED’ to do it.

Following is the story of one man’s experiences on one day’s patrol: “My experience with ICE as a bystander, now in sharp relief” [Jaron Magstadt; Minnesota Star Tribune; 1/8/26]. Excerpts below:

3] “I then followed the sound of whistles to find two more unmarked vehicles back in front of the strip mall. I ran over to see a masked agent holding a can of pepper spray to my partner’s face, threatening to mace them.”

4]. “We followed the vehicles throughout the parking lot as they moved to a different store on the same lot. Before leaving the lot completely, on of the SUV’s, which was facing my partner and I, accelerated toward us in a perceived attempt to run us over, or at the very least a threat to do so.”

1]. “The events of Jan. 7, while a clear escalation, are just one example of ICE sowing fear and terror in our community. I was on patrol for ICE with my partner and other community members….There had been community reports of ICE being active in that area throughout the day, so we showed up in support of our neighbors.”

2]. “I was pacing up and down the sidewalk in front of the strip mall when I saw a blue SUV with no plates drive past me. I quickly followed it behind the building…where I witnessed two more unmarked vehicles pull up to surround a young man on an electric scooter. Four or five men in masks and vests labeled ICE jumped out. They asked him for his Social Security number, if he had a visa, and if he could prove his citizenship. I could not hear his response…but they held a phone camera to hid face and let him go.” [SO – YOU are walking – 4 masked men demand YOUR I.D. – to prove to THEM that YOU are an American citizen !!!!!!! – Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Communist China? – no, “America” ]

5]. “After the agents left, it was clear that fear was radiating throughout the strip mall. All of the shop doors were locked, with customers watching the events unfold through the window, looks of terror across their faces.”

6]. “I share this knowing that my experience is not an isolated event. My neighbors are living in fear of being taken from their families, and so are many across Minnesota because of ICE.”

***. “Neither democracy nor effective representation is possible until each participant in the group – and this is true equally of a household or a nation – devotes a measurable part of his life to furthering its existence.” [ Lewis Mumford ]

The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CX – “When ICE comes for our kids’ caregivers, no one is safe”

~ tomdolen


*** “Evil begins when you begin to treat people like things.” [ Terry Pratchatt ]

This post is the fourth in a series to describe to YOU the effects of ICE thugs on ordinary people. Effects often invisible – but the trauma inflicted on individuals, neighborhoods, communities, cities will NOT end when ICE thugs and Trump DICTATORSHIP cease to DELIBERATELY cause chaos and fear.

These posts are a WARNING. – what is happening throughout Minnesota can easily happen in YOUR state if “our’ 13-year old president and Rasputins around him decide they “NEED’ to do it.

This is the story of one family, of an American citizen: “ICE agents seize U.S. citizen in Robbinsdale encounter” { Kim Hyatt, Sofia Barnett; Minnesota Star Tribune; 1/10/26 ]:

7]. “Duffy said she has been unable to get information from federal officials about where he is being detained.”

1] “A Crystal man was detained by immigration agents in Robbinsdale early Jan. 8 in an encounter his family described as violent and that a relative livestreamed on Facebook. The man, Jose Roberto Ramirez was born in Minneapolis..”

2] “Raelyn Duffy, his mother and a member of the Red Lake Nation, said she brought his passport and birth certificate to the Whipple Federal Building..but was turned away. She said she has not been able to contact him.”

3] “It just looked like he got rushed. They just punched him, pulled him out of the car, ‘ Duffy said.”

4]. “Agents briefly put their guns away and got back in their vehicle, SosaClark said. Bystanders urged her to get her nephew into her car and away from the area. but as she attempted to leave, she said, ICE agents suddenly surrounded the vehicle.”

5]. “We just got swarmed up and blocked in, and there was about 20 ICE agents came after us, and that’s when I started recording,’ she said.”

6]. “As they were scanning his face, another agent came and punches him, and they just started hitting him,” she said.”

8] “Meanwhile, Sosa-Clara said she’s afraid to leave her house.”

***. “Power, unless managed with gentleness and discretion, does but make a man the more hated; no intervals of good humor, no starts of bounty, will atone for tyranny and oppression.” [ Jeremy Collins ]

The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CVIII – “When ICE comes for our kids’ caregivers, no one is safe”, III

~ tomdolen

*** “Cruelty constitutes the greatest moral distance at which an intelligent creature can be removed from a God of forbearance and mercy.” [ Elica Cook ]

This post is the third to describe to YOU the effects of ICE thugs on ordinary people, especially on traumatized children. The effects are often invisible – but the trauma inflicted on individuals, neighborhoods, communities, cities will NOT end whrn ICE thugs and Trump DICTATORSHIP cease to DELIBERATELY cause chaos and fear.

If YOU are a caring, decent American – these posts are a WARNING to YOU – what is happening throughout Minnesota can easily happen in YOUR state. – if some Far Right “influencer” decides to stage something hat sets off ‘our’ 13-year old president and the Rasputins around him itching for a new “crisis” they can USE to carry out their agenda

***. “a Stalin functionary admitted, “Innocent people were arrested naturally – otherwise no one would be frightened. If people, he said, were arrested only for specific misdemeanors, all the others would feel safe.” [ Paul Johnson ]

“Who will be the villains and heroes in this story? There are ordinary people responding to fear and cruelty, and there are those with unchecked power.” [ Ka Vang; Minnesota Star Tribune; 1/9/26 ]; some excerpts:

2] “By the end of Wednesday, the impact of the expanded ICE presence moved through the Twin Cities like a tornado. Restaurants closed early. Small and large businesses sent workers home. Minneapolis schools closed for the week – not because of an official curfew or emergency, but because fear had settled over the city like a violent fog out of a Stephen King novel…the kind of fear that reshapes behavior. That rewrites the meaning of public safety.”

3] “Safety becomes conditional. Streets once neutral turn into sites of calculation. Is it safer to drive or to walk? To go to school or stay home? To shop in person or order online? To intervene or look away?”

4]. “This is how fear works. it redraws maps in our hearts and our heads.”

6]. “Trauma does not stay contained. It ripples outward – through families, workplaces and neighborhoods. It shows up as anxiety, exhaustion, distraction and grief.”

5] “The blood on the snow is red regardless of who it came from.”

7] ‘…the deeper truth. Her death did not just take a life – it altered how Minnesotans understand safety, power and proximity.”

1] “Renee Nicole Good was shot in the head and killed by an ICE agent in south Minneapolis – not while climbing a wall at the border, not during a hidden raid, not inside a remote detention facility…killed on a street where people walk their dogs, take their children to school and stop to greet their neighbors. A street lined with homes, meant to be ordinary. Until three shots rang out, and Good was dead.”

8] “One of my favorite writers is Stephen King, and what I love about his heroes is that they are always ordinary people responding to fear, power and cruelty that is unleashed. As for his villains, they are often embodiments of unchecked power. This sounds like Minnesotans and the Trump administration.”

9] “In King’s books, victory is not the absence of violence; it is the refusal to normalize it. When federal violence enters ordinary streets, the question is no longer whether we are afraid. The question is who we choose to be while living inside that fear.”

10]. “History will remember this moment and there will be no surprises at who the villains are. It will certainly not be Good and thse like her.”

*** “It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples can sweep down the mightiest walls of repression and resistance.” [ Robert F. Kennedy, SENIOR!!!!; 6/6/1966 ]