In Minneapolis, USA, another valuable human being has been executed.
Alex Pretti, ICU nurse, executed whilst trying to protect a woman who had been thrown to the ground by ICE agents
We are heartbroken but also very angry.
“Alex was a kindhearted soul who cared deeply for his family and friends and also the American veterans whom he cared for as an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA hospital.
“Alex wanted to make a difference in this world. Unfortunately he will not be with us to see his impact.
“I do not throw around the hero term lightly. However, his last thought and act was to protect a woman.
“The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting.
“Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump’s murdering and cowardly ICE thugs.
“He has his phone in his right hand and his empty left hand is raised above his head while trying to protect the woman ICE just pushed down all while being pepper-sprayed.
“Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man. Thank you
Sky News
ICU nurse with no criminal record who ‘cared deeply for people’: What we know about Alex Pretti, victim of DHS shooting
Alex Pretti worked as an ICU nurse and had spent time working with the Department of Veterans Affairs
Graig Graziosi in Washington, D.C.Sunday 25 January 2026 01:39 GMT
This photo is gleaned from a video the NYT verified as real, shows the execution of a helpless PRETTI by a manic, untrained, unsupervised group of ICE agents
Terrence Goggin on Substack, Jan 25th 2026:
Today is a very sad day in my household. The murder of the Intensive Care Nurse Alex Pretti, one of our own, he worked at the VA Medical Center in Minneapolis taking care of the sickest of us, struck me hard. Very hard. I looked at the numerous videos of him trying to aid a female protestor. His last words to her before he was shot were “Are you all right”. He was shot helping another human being who was gassed by ICE. HE WILL NEVER BE FORGOTTEN BY THE VETERAN COMMUNITY. And neither will his killing. It demands justice!
Today:
Recently, seven House Democrats voted in favor of a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security, which includes funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). This decision has sparked significant backlash from their party, as many Democrats oppose ICE’s actions and are calling for more oversight and accountability. Newsweek The Independent
The 7 are:
The seven Democratic representatives who voted yes to approve ICE funding were:
Tom Suozzi (New York)
Henry Cuellar (Texas)
Don Davis (North Carolina)
Laura Gillen (New York)
Jared Golden (Maine)
Vicente Gonzalez (Texas)
Marie Glusenkamp Perez (Washington)
Chris Murphy revealed:
Pam Bondi just sent a letter to MN officials saying ICE will leave if the state turns over its voter database to Trump.
So that is what ICE are really being tasked to do, it would seem: to implement fear, chaos, death and economical damage until a state agrees to turn over its voter database. Then the mid term elections can be manipulated.
If they continue to resist then the Insurrection Act hangs over them like the Sword of Damocles.
Just looked back at a Huffington Post article almost 2 years ago:
Ex-GOP Strategist Has A Stunningly Scathing Response To Latest Republican Loss
“Is there really any question why this party is losing?” Stuart Stevens asked.
Stevens then detailed just some of the stark issues facing the party, scathingly writing:
A party led by a rapist that believes it can fix its problem with women by attacking Taylor Swift, with weird little creeps like Mike Johnson as a public face in Congress, that has no serious policy, that has decided to abandon decades of support for freedom in Europe to back a genocidal dictator, a party that is 85% white in a 59% white country, a party that has decided higher education is a gateway drug to Socialism, that believes public health policy should be set by random freaks on the internet and not doctors, a party that is still fighting cultural wars of gender politics the rest of America ended a decade ago, a party that has replaced American optimism with anger and fear of the future.
Catch up with Stuart Stevens today on Substack, Lincoln Project.
Perpetuating the misery are Trump’s Appellate Judges:
Trump’s ‘Superstar’ Appellate Judges Have Voted 133 to 12 in His Favor
President Trump promised to fill the appeals courts with “my judges.” They have formed a nearly united phalanx to defend his agenda from legal challenges.
Mattathias Schwartz covers the federal courts. Emma Schartz has spent months tracking lawsuits challenging Donald Trump’s agenda.
Jan. 11, 2026
President Trump has found a powerful but obscure bulwark in the appeals court judges he appointed during his first term. They have voted overwhelmingly in his favor when his administration’s actions have been challenged in court in his current term, a New York Times analysis of their 2025 records shows.
Time and again, appellate judges chosen by Mr. Trump in his first term reversed rulings made by district court judges in his second, clearing the way for his policies and gradually eroding a perception early last year that the legal system was thwarting his efforts to amass presidential power.
When Mr. Trump criticized a ruling from a so-called “Obama judge” in 2018, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. responded that “we do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges.”
I am adding a piece from Chris Hedges’ Substack today, Jan 26 2026, entitled ‘Imperial Boomerang’:
The murders of unarmed civilians on the streets of Minneapolis, including the killing today of the intensive-care nurse Alex Jeffrey Pretti, would not come as a shock to Iraqis in Fallujah or Afghans in Helmand province. They were terrorized by heavily armed American execution squads for decades. It would not come as a shock to any of the students I teach in prison. Militarized police in poor urban neighborhoods kick down doors without warrants and kill with the same impunity and lack of accountability. What the rest of us are facing now, is what Aimé Césaire called imperial boomerang. Empires, when they decay, employ the savage forms of control on those they subjugate abroad, or those demonized by the wider society in the name of law and order, on the homeland. The tyranny Athens imposed on others, Thucydides noted, it finally, with the collapse of Athenian democracy, imposed on itself. But before we became the victims of state terror, we were accomplices. Before we expressed moral outrage at the indiscriminate taking of innocent lives, we tolerated, and often celebrated, the same Gestapo tactics, as long as they were directed at those who lived in the nations we occupied or poor people of color. We sowed the wind, now we will reap the whirlwind. The machinery of terror, perfected on those we abandoned and betrayed, including the Palestinians in Gaza, is ready for us.
Greg Bovino ‘loses top job at Border Patrol’ and locked out of social media
Story by Stephen M. Lepore and Phillip Nieto
• 5h
Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino, one of the faces of Donald Trump‘s immigration crackdown, has been removed from his role and sent back to California.
He will return to his former job in El Centro, California, where he is expected to retire soon, the Atlantic reported on Monday, citing a Homeland Security official and two people with knowledge of the change.
Bovino had his government social media accounts revoked on the orders of his boss, Border Patrol Commissioner Rodney Scott, Homeland Security sources confirmed to the Daily Mail. Bovino had spent the weekend sparring online over the shooting of 37-year-old Alex Pretti.
He had tweeted multiple times ‘don’t assault federal officers’ in response to people sharing positive information about Pretti.
Bovino also, in response to one account claiming that Pretti ‘never at any time produced a gun,’ wrote that ‘the SUSPECT confronted and assaulted officers and was armed while doing so.’
He even got into it with lawmakers, including Republican Thomas Massie, after the Kentucky Congressman wrote that ‘carrying a firearm is not a death sentence, it’s a Constitutionally protected God-given right and if you don’t understand this you have no business in law enforcement or government.’
Bovino responded: ‘Attacking law enforcement is not a right like you want it to be.’
The commander also wrote angrily at Republican Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy and Texas Democrat Senate candidate James Talarico, both of whom called for independent investigations into the shooting, as well as author Stephen King.
Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino, one of the faces of Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, has been removed from his role as ‘commander at large’
The move would be a part of a major shakeup by the Trump administration at the request of Border Czar Tom Homan
After tweeting over 40 responses to various reactions to the Pretti shooting on Saturday and Sunday, Bovino’s X account has gone silent for the past 11 hours.
Tricia McLaughlin, assistant press secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, said Bovino had not been fired and remained a ‘key part of the president’s team.’
Bovino – who has been dubbed ‘little Napoleon’ – and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have both been sidelined as Homan heads for Minneapolis.
He had previously served as the Chief Patrol Agent of the El Centro Sector of the Border Patrol in southern California before he was elevated during the second Trump administration.
The Daily Mail has reached out to Customs and Border Patrol for comment.
The decision is aimed at de-escalating the violence between federal agents and rioters which exploded on Saturday after the killing of Pretti, an ICU nurse.
Bovino, the controversial face of Trump’s crackdown and a close ally of Noem, sparked fury in the White House when he claimed Pretti intended to ‘massacre’ federal agents.
Bovino – who has been dubbed ‘little Napoleon’ – and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have both been sidelined as Homan (pictured) heads for Minneapolis
Bovino has reportedly lost access to his government social media accounts, after spending much of the weekend sparring online over the shooting of 37-year-old Alex Pretti (pictured)
Trump spent hours on Sunday and Monday watching cable news coverage and was unsettled by how the administration was being portrayed, one official told CNN.
Noem branded the ICU nurse a ‘domestic terrorist’ and claimed he brandished a firearm, sparking further frustration among administration officials.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt distanced Trump from Noem’s language on Monday, arguing that it was not a position that the President had taken.
Bovino is a loyalist to Noem and her rumored lover Corey Lewandowski, and both have quietly pushed him as a potential replacement for current Border Patrol chief Rodney Scott, a longtime ally of Homan.
Noem has sought to sideline Scott by having Bovino report directly to her, an unprecedented move within the agency.
Bovino’s removal from Minneapolis underscores Noem’s fading standing with the White House as Trump dispatches Homan and his closest allies to seize control of the operation on the ground.
A Border Patrol veteran of 30 years, Bovino was selected last year from his role as chief patrol agent of the agency’s El Centro sector in Southern California to lead highly publicized immigration crackdowns across the country.
His aggressive tactics, often highly choreographed public displays, sparked backlash from local officials.
Bovino often stood out as the only agent not wearing a face covering when Border Patrol descended on Home Depots and gas stations.
The decision is aimed at de-escalating the violence between federal agents and rioters which exploded on Saturday after the killing of Pretti, an ICU nurse
He has gone viral on social media as he is frequently spotted on the frontlines sporting a severe buzzcut and trench coat, which German media has likened to a ‘Nazi aesthetic’.
California Governor Gavin Newsom said on X: ‘Greg Bovino dressed up as if he literally went on eBay and purchased SS garb. Greg Bovino, secret police, private army, masked men, people disappearing quite literally, no due process.’
Bovino hit back, claiming he had the coat for more than 25 years and it was official Border Patrol merchandise.
Jenn Budd, an author and expert on Border Patrol, described Bovino as ‘the Liberace’ of the agency.
‘He was just a little Napoleon who wants you to think that he is the most moral and capable guy in the world, and everything around you is dangerous but he’s the one who’s going to save you,’ Budd told The Times. ‘It’s all a show for him.’
He once invited journalists to watch him swim across a canal in Southern California’s Imperial Valley in a bid to deter migrants considering the crossing.
After Trump was re-elected Bovino used similar public relations expertise to catch the president’s eye.
He sent dozens of agents to arrest migrants at gas stations along the highway ahead of Trump’s inauguration.
Asked why Bovino was chosen to lead the force, McLaughlin told reporters bluntly: ‘Because he’s a badass.’
But while Bovino’s strongman image earned him Trump’s respect, his self-proclaimed ‘turn and burn’ enforcement strategies have sparked concern.
A federal judge accused Bovino in November of being ‘evasive’ and at times ‘outright lying’ in sworn testimony about an immigration crackdown in Chicago, finding his account ‘simply not credible.’
Judge Sara Ellis wrote that Bovino even admitted he lied about being hit with a rock before ordering tear gas used, and noted that video evidence flatly contradicted his claim that he never tackled a protester.
A Substack author, Ken Klippenstein, obtained reactions from experienced ICE agents about new recruits after the Pretti shooting. Here is an extract:
Though all of the federal agents I’ve spoken to this weekend support immigration enforcement, they indeed see the Minneapolis operation as something else entirely” an open-ended counterinsurgency in a faraway land and under an out-of-touch leadership in Washington more concerned with optics than immigration.
“This is a no-win situation for agents on the ground or immigration enforcement overall,” a Border Patrol agent said in the private group chat shared with me.
He closed on a plaintive note: “I think it’s time to pull out of Minnesota, that battle is lost.”
“Fuck this,” a senior ICE officer said about the shooting of Pretti.
Retired, living in the Scottish Borders after living most of my life in cities in England. I can now indulge my interest in all aspects of living close to nature in a wild landscape. I live on what was once the Iapetus Ocean which took millions of years to travel from the Southern Hemisphere to here in the Northern Hemisphere. That set me thinking and questioning and seeking answers.
In 1998 I co-wrote Millennium Countdown (US)/ A Business Guide to the Year 2000 (UK) see https://www.abebooks.co.uk/products/isbn/9780749427917
borderslynn 
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