Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D) holds a news conference after the fatal ICE shooting of Renee Nicole Good.
THURSDAY 1/8/25
Fatal Shooting by ICE – It is by no means a stretch, given the Trump White House’s history on elections, to be concerned that his deployment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in “liberal” cities will end in a clampdown on legally registered voters in the November 3 midterm elections.
An ICE agent’s fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother of three and described in various news accounts as a 'legal observer' of the agency's actions, in a neighborhood less than a mile away from the spot where police officer Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd in May 2020, will intensify this fight over how fair elections will be “enforced” for the next 10 months.
Multiple smartphone videos show Good attempting to drive off from a confrontation with ICE agents on a snowy one-way street as one agent attempted to open her driver’s door and another shot at her from her SUV’s left-front corner. The agent fired one shot through her windshield and two or three shots inside her open window, sending the vehicle off to hit two parked cars. She was pronounced dead at the Hennepin County Medical Center.
Both the FBI and state law enforcement are investigating.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told a press conference Wednesday that Good had “attempted to weaponize her vehicle” and said the shooting was the “result of an act of domestic terrorism.”
One eyewitness told NPR’s Morning Edition that ICE agents had given Good conflicting commands.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D) responded to Noem’s remarks about ICE agents acting “defensively” in a press conference Wednesday, The Minnesota Star Tribune reports.
“There’s little I can say that will make the situation better, but I do have a message for our community, our city, and I have a message for ICE,” Frey said, according to the Star Tribune’s transcript. “To ICE, get the fuck out of Minneapolis. We do not want you here. Your stated reason for being in this city is to create some kind of safety, and you’re doing exactly the opposite. People are being hurt. Families are ripped apart. Long-term Minneapolis residents that have contributed so greatly to our city, to our culture, to our economy are being terrorized and now someone is dead.”
In a separate press conference, Gov. Tim Walz (D) encouraged safe and peaceful protest. Walz suggested that “Maybe we’re at our McCarthy moment,” and evoked attorney Joseph N. Welch, who in a June 9, 1954 Army-McCarthy hearing investigating alleged Communists in the US State Department said to Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-WI); “at long last, sir, do you have no decency?”
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Trump to Rebuild Venezuela, Renovate White House – The US will be running Venezuela and extracting its oil for years, President Trump told The New York Times in a wide-ranging Oval Office interview Wednesday evening.
“We’re going to be using oil, and we’re going to be taking oil,” Trump said. “We’re getting oil prices down, and we’re going to be giving money to Venezuela, which they desperately need.”
Asked whether the US will be involved with Venezuela six months, a year? Trump replied, “I would say much longer.”
That wide range of subjects in the NYT interview included ICE’s fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis, immigration and even further plans for White House renovations.
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February SOTU – President Trump is expected to hold the first annual State of the Union address of his second term on Wednesday, February 4, according to Roll Call, which reports that Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) says he has formally invited the president to address a joint session of Congress. –TL
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WEDNESDAY 1/7/26
Deal for Greenland – The Wall Street Journal Wednesday scoops a closed-door meeting in which Secretary of State Marco Rubio tells lawmakers that the Trump administration’s goal is to purchase Greenland from Denmark, rather than take it by force. That’s according to people familiar with the briefing who spoke to the WSJ, which did not report that the private meeting was exclusively for Republican congressmembers, though that’s the way to bet.
The scoop counters White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller’s refusal on CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper to rule out military action to take over the nation of 30,000 people – which would essentially amount to aggression on NATO.
As with Venezuela’s oil, US takeover of Greenland is more about access to critical minerals, according to the WSJ, than as a strategic military operation base, though Denmark already has indicated the United States would have open access to such natural resources.
But the WSJ scoop also quotes Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a close ally of President Trump, especially on foreign relations subjects, saying “we need to have the legal control and protections to justify building the place up and putting our people on the ground.”
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US Seizes Russian-Flagged Oil Tanker – The US Coast Guard Wednesday boarded a Russian-flagged tanker in the North Atlantic that was transporting oil from Venezuela, The New York Times reports, “sharply escalating” the Trump administration’s rift with Moscow after the ouster of Nicolás Maduro. The oil tanker for about two weeks had evaded US efforts to “crack down” on Venezuela’s oil exports, according to the report.
Meanwhile, at a Goldman Sachs energy conference in Greater Miami Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the US intends to maintain “significant control” and oversee the sale of Venezuela’s oil production “indefinitely.”
“Going forward we will sell the production that comes out of Venezuela into the marketplace,” Wright said.
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Minnesota’s Day Care Scandal – Trump White House-connected right-wing influencer Nick Shirley is taking a “victory lap” after his 42-minute video alleging widespread fraud at Minneapolis-area daycare centers run by the Somali diaspora led to the administration freezing federal funding for daycare, including about $10 billion to five Democratic-led states, plus Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz dropping out of his 2026 bid for a third term.
Walz said he was ending his bid for a third term as governor to concentrate on investigation of the daycares.
But Shirley & Co. may want to keep that victory lap in check, as Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) now may drop into the gubernatorial race in place of Walz, Axios reports. The rumors started last weekend when The New York Times reported on a private meeting between Klobuchar, who has been in the Senate 19 years and ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, and Walz, who was the Democratic vice-presidential candidate in 2024.
Minnesota’s GOP already has a crowded field of gubernatorial candidates for the August 11 state primary. A state Republican Party straw poll Axios covered last December had two-time gubernatorial candidate Kendall Qualls leading state House Speaker Lisa Demuth, 93 votes to 90 votes. MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell was a distant third at 49 votes, but that’s not a bad showing considering the Trump acolyte had just entered the race.
No doubt Klobuchar would relish taking on Lindell. And it seems plausible that if Klobuchar does run to become her state’s governor, she would name Walz as replacement to fill her Senate term, which ends in 2031. – Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa