"Legal observers exist to help vindicate the First Amendment rights of the assembled. According to the National Lawyers Guild, which formalized the practice..."

"... such observers 'create documentation during events which can later be use (sic) in defense cases, public statements, and litigation which aims to hold law enforcement agencies accountable for the actions of their officers.' The Guild notes that legal observation has its roots in the Black Panthers’ 'cop watch' activities of the late 1960s.... In 1968, in connection with anti-war and racial justice demonstrations in New York City, the Guild 'took components from this practice' of cop watch to develop its legal observer program – the self-described 'eyes and ears' of a larger infrastructure of 'arrest hotlines, jail support teams, community bail funds ... attorney referral networks, and more.' Those who have adopted the Guild’s practice, such as the Minnesota ICE Watch group with which Renee] Good was reportedly affiliated, have advocated for activities that blur the line between observation and participation in protests...."

Writes Benjamin Weingarten in "The Grey Zone: When Do Protest Observers Become Lawbreaking Participants?" (Real Clear Investigations).

"DO NOT make the mistake President Biden made for not firing a grossly incompetent DHS Secretary."

Writes Senator John Fetterman to President Trump, quoted in "Fetterman calls on Trump to fire Noem: 'Americans have died'" (The Hill).

When I first read that line — "Americans have died" — I thought he meant to say the entire nation has lost its soul.

But he meant the simpler, concrete reality: Renee Good and Alex Pretti have died.

There's also this: "Trump Holds 2-Hour Meeting With Noem Amid Backlash to Minneapolis Shooting" (NYT): "The meeting came after Ms. Noem requested to see the president.... Ms. Noem has been the face of the administration’s immigration crackdown, and she has been among the most vocal in spreading false accusations against Mr. Pretti, including labeling him a 'domestic terrorist.' The Oval Office meeting also included several of Mr. Trump’s top aides.... The meeting came the same day Mr. Trump announced he was sending Tom Homan, his border czar, to oversee the operation in Minneapolis. The move was seen as a way to elevate an official who is steeped in Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s longstanding practice of prioritizing targeted arrests, rather than the kinds of sweeping raids that the Trump administration has carried out in cities across the country."

The referenced "grossly incompetent" Biden DHS Secretary was Alejandro Mayorkas, who oversaw the 10+ million illegal border crossings. Why didn't Biden fire him? A cynic would say Biden approved of what was happening. And yet even if he approved, he should have signaled that he did not approve, and firing the Secretary is a showy way to express disapproval.

"The killing of Alex Pretti is a heartbreaking tragedy. It should also be a wake-up call to every American, regardless of party..."

"... that many of our core values as a nation are increasingly under assault. Federal law enforcement and immigration agents have a tough job. But Americans expect them to carry out their duties in a lawful, accountable way, and to work with, rather than against, state and local officials to ensure public safety. That's not what we're seeing in Minnesota. In fact, we're seeing the opposite."

So reads the "Statement by President Obama and Mrs. Obama," posted on X by Barack Obama.

"The Minnesotans I met on the streets of Minneapolis and St. Paul were determined to resist and fight back."

"The Trump administration has tried to paint the anti-ICE activists as hard-left agitators, 'blue-haired' domestic terrorists bent on stirring up mayhem. But I found they looked a lot more like a woman I met named Hillary Oppmann, a blonde, 50-something solar energy consultant who lives in South Minneapolis. I stumbled upon Oppmann on a frigid morning last week, when I rolled up on a corner near a high school in South Minneapolis.... A few minutes before I had come upon her, Oppmann had heard the sound of whistles like the one that she wears around her neck, and hustled to the spot.... Oppmann had gotten involved as a volunteer in this group through a parents’ group at the local high school.... She told me she wasn’t surprised at how quickly her neighbors had sprung into action. The community groups that formed in the wake of the murder of George Floyd quickly reactivated, she told me, making it much easier to organize a response. The killing of Renee Good was a horrific shock, but it has not deterred the volunteer observers — if anything, Oppmann said, their ranks have swelled. 'Minnesotans are really good at chipping away at ice,' she dryly noted...."

Writes Lydia Polgreen, in "In Minneapolis, I Glimpsed a Civil War" (NYT).

I remember when "blue-haired" was used in descriptions of little old ladies, nice grandmas, who got their white hair tinted slightly blue to keep it from tending toward yellow. Oppmann is portrayed as someone like that even as she is contrasted to "hard-left agitators, 'blue-haired' domestic terrorists." That's a different blueness, an aggressively intentional unnatural look. The little old lady blueness was a byproduct of gentle dithering over the appearance of age.

Have you experienced this "Derisive Term for White Women Spreads on the Far Right" or is the NYT pushing it at us to foment contempt for conservatives?

I'm reading "After Renee Good Killing, Derisive Term for White Women Spreads on the Far Right/Vocal Trump supporters are demonizing Renee Good, her partner and their allies, with some even using an acronym: AWFUL, or Affluent White Female Urban Liberal" by Clyde McGrady.

I hadn't seen this term, and I read all sorts of things every day, so that makes me think this term isn't really a thing... though I've certainly noticed that people of the right are passing around a lot of videos of highly emotional left-wing white women.

But then I asked Meade, and he had heard the term and it seems to be catching on. 

Needless to say, I don't like the term. I don't like expressions of contempt and I don't like commentators  trading on the idea that women are over-emotional. I also don't like freaking out and yelling in public (or at home), but you can say just that, without contributing to sex-based hatred. 

Despite that NYT headline, McGrady's column isn't really about the term AWFUL. It's more about the phenomenon of going after activist liberal white women:

"We've seen it since the 1960s.... Police violence lands on this country in a tinderbox fashion."

"And so what is so important for leaders to do in that circumstance is: to obviously lament the lives lost, pledge an independent transparent investigation, and pledge to... seek justice no matter where it leads.... It strikes me that the exact opposite of that is what has occurred. And  immediately after [Renee Good] was killed, she was called a domestic terrorist, very publicly. There are people who then accuse the cop of murder, very publicly, right off the bat. That is pouring gasoline on this situation, and it's horrific.... This incredible rush to judgment results in fixed positions about complicated matters.... And then... there's this assertion, well, this is completely your fault because... when a federal officer gives you instructions, you abide by them and then you get to keep your life. No, no, no, no. That is not what a free society says. We should respect officers... but it is simply not the case that... your right to your life depends on compliance with federal officials.... It's dangerous to drive away from the police. You should not drive away from the police. But under no circumstances is America a country where the command should be obey the men and women in uniform or your life is forfeit. That's not the standard of the United States of America."

Says David French on the new episode of the Advisory Opinions podcast (transcript and audio at Podscribe).

ADDED: If you are questioning the usage in the phrase "or your life is forfeit," know that C.S. Lewis used in in "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" (full text at Gutenberg):

"Now the senator came down here/Showing ev’ryone his gun/Handing out free tickets/To the wedding of his son."

"An’ me, I nearly got busted/An’ wouldn’t it be my luck/To get caught without a ticket/And be discovered beneath a truck...."

Sang Bob Dylan, in his most-Bob-Dylan song, "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again."

I'm just trying to read The New York Times* and the headline is "Handing Out Free Tickets, Mamdani Says Theater Should Not Be 'a Luxury.'"

What's with these politicians handing out free tickets? I'm suspicious, but maybe the mayor's just flaky, pie-in-the-sky.

“The shared laughter in a crowded theater, the eager debrief after a musical, the heavy silence that hangs over all of us in a drama — these are moments that every New Yorker deserves,” Mamdani said later, explaining the initiative during a news conference at one of the festival’s venues, Brooklyn College’s Leonard and Claire Tow Center for the Performing Arts.

That quote is wild. What man of the people would say "the eager debrief after a musical"? He seems like more of a poet... an abstruse poet. 

There was once a country ruled by a poet. It was Václav Havel, the last president of Czechoslovakia. 

_________________________________

* If you're with me in Bob Dylandom, you just thought "shoot a few holes, blow their minds." But I don't like seeing those words today, in the shadow of the killing of Renee Good, and there they are along with "showing ev’ryone his gun" and "discovered beneath a truck" — truck ≈ SUV.

"Look at these terrible people who are interfering with law enforcement. Don’t they deserve to get executed in the middle of the street in the United States of America?"

Said State Representative Aisha Gomez, a Minneapolis Democrat, sarcastically characterizing the motive behind the release of new video, which you can see at "New Cellphone Video Shows ICE Agent’s Perspective Before Minneapolis Shooting/The Department of Homeland Security posted a clip of the video on social media and said it was taken by the agent, who killed a 37-year-old woman in the shooting" (NYT)(gift link).

And consider this:

The RNC posted yesterday that "Democrats were told to be 'willing to get shot' to obstruct President Trump."

I do think this posting should say that this interview took place last July. Posting it relates to the shooting of Renee Good, but when Blitzer and Jeffries spoke, the incident had not yet occurred:

Democrats were told to be "willing to get shot" to obstruct President Trump, and instead of condemning it, they incited it further.

Democrats are held hostage by their violent and deranged far-left base.pic.twitter.com/Y3DQw2UG4z

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) January 8, 2026

Here's the Axios article Blitzer cites, "Democrats told to 'get shot' for the anti-Trump resistance" (published July 7, 2025). Excerpt:

A lynch mob? A crowd chants "Kristi Noem will Hang!" in New York City.

NOW: "Kristi Noem will Hang!" Huge crowd chants in Foley Square NYC, also "Save a life, kill an ICE" as they gather to protest the ICE killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis.

Some in the crowd condemn the talk of killing. pic.twitter.com/ifrXNZB0dz

— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) January 8, 2026

Democrats who hope to win back power need to act now to reconnect with peace and good order. They seem to have encouraged the chaos yesterday, and they need something quite different today lest they be seen as they wanted us to see Trump after January 6th, as having incited insurrection.

"So I feel like white tears are not always something that's helpful or necessary when black and brown people have been experiencing this for a long time."

A woman at the makeshift memorial for Renee Good told me it felt wrong for her to be there.

Because she’s a white woman with a lot of “privilege”

“I feel like white tears are not always helpful or necessary.” pic.twitter.com/B6ZASuWLEZ

— Brecca Stoll (@breccastoll) January 9, 2026

What is this person really saying? At first, you might think the idea is that she is a white lady and so perhaps she should minimize herself and not put herself forward as the crier of tears. That's self-dramatizing, privileged, and performative. But if you listen again and pay attention to the last part — "black and brown people have been experiencing this for a long time" — it sounds as though she is minimizing Renee Good! It seems that she is imagining persons of color who have suffered from violent law enforcement for many decades and who might be hurt to see extreme grief over the death of a white woman. It's confusing and she seems to understand herself as a good person in need of instruction in a complex situation.

"In a wide-ranging conversation with four Times reporters, President Trump talked about the Minneapolis ICE shooting, immigration, Venezuela and even his plans for further White House renovations."

I see "Trump Sits Down With Times Reporters for Two-Hour Interview," the headline in the NYT.

There's no substance, just an announcement:

The Times’s coverage of the president’s remarks will include stories, newsletters and videos over the coming days, as well as an episode of The Daily on Friday. A transcript of the interview will be published.

Very bold of Trump to give all that access — and right in the middle of a week packed with quickly unfolding action and with only the full transcript to protect him. I like that the Times is breaking out the material in separate bits.

The first bit is: "We Pressed Trump on His Conclusion About the ICE Shooting. Here’s What He Said. The exchange was a glimpse into the president’s reflexive defense of his federal crackdown on immigration." It could have been a much more reflexive defense of the ICE agents. His first take was balanced: "I want to see nobody get shot. I want to see nobody screaming and trying to run over policemen either." And later, he says: "She behaved horribly. And then she ran him over. She didn’t try to run him over" — I would say that's a reflexive defense of the woman. How does he know she didn't try to run the agent over? 

Also, the NYT writes "When we pressed Mr. Trump on his conclusion that the victim, Renee Nicole Good, tried to run over the agent," but technically, the first quote is not a statement that she tried to run anyone over. It's a distanced, abstract statement: "I want to see nobody get shot. I want to see nobody screaming and trying to run over policemen either." I'm not seeing the follow-up question quoted, but I think it shouldn't have been "Why are you concluding that Good tried to run over the agent?" but "Are you saying you've determined that Good tried to run over the agent?" [Or better, to avoid ambiguity: "Are you saying you've determined that Good intended to run over the agent?"]

The second article based on the interview is "Trump Says U.S. Oversight of Venezuela Could Last for Years/In a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times on Wednesday, President Trump said 'only time will tell' when it comes to how long the United States aims to control the country" (NYT).

"Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) said the National Guard is ready to deploy if riots break out, something he was too slow to do after George Floyd’s murder in 2020."

"But he pleaded with protesters to remain peaceful. 'They want a show,' he said. 'We can’t give it to them.' Walz is right that Trump could use unrest to invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy U.S. troops to Minnesota. (A recent defeat at the Supreme Court otherwise limited his authority to commandeer the National Guard.) The president posted on social media: 'We need to stand by and protect our Law Enforcement Officers from this Radical Left Movement of Violence and Hate!'... Before the shooting, Walz described the federal enforcement surge as 'a war that’s being waged against Minnesota.' After the incident, MAGA allies quickly sought to blame Walz’s rhetoric, including his previous comparison of ICE to the Gestapo, for raising tensions...."

 
Writes the Editorial Board of The Washington Post, in "The woman fatally shot by ICE in Minneapolis did not deserve to die/Rioting in response to fatal shooting plays into Trump’s hands."

Minnesota in rapid decline.

🚨 BREAKING: Minneapolis Police has now PULLED OUT as hundreds of protestors begin pushing police officers

Antifa is going to be allowed to take over the city AGAIN.

The National Guard may need to be deployed VERY soon, as Democrats will let this place BURN! pic.twitter.com/ntr0OmK4xh

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) January 7, 2026

ADDED: The rowdy mob is throwing snowballs. Reminiscent of the Boston Massacre.

AND: From David McCullough's "John Adams" (commission earned):