EA-Times Radio VideoCast: Trump, Bondi, and “The Authoritarian is Here”
UPDATE, JAN 10:
I also spoke with BBC Radio Ulster on Friday about the ICE killing of Renee Nicole Good; the Trump Administration’s disinformation and smearing of her as a “domestic terrorist”; and the facts of the case.
Along the way, I deal with the unsupported claims of the Trumpist activist Colton Taussig, including his dismissal of the facts as “speculation”; his repetition of the smears; his misinformation that the FBI can lock out State and local law enforcement from the investigation; and his falsehood that Vice President J.D. Vance did not demean her as a “radical leftist”.
This is not an “unfortunate tragedy”. This is a killing.
We need dialogue. We need proper, responsible action. But we have a group of people at the top of government who have deployed masked, unidentified men with firearms who are sweeping into communities with no accountability and no legal process.
To listen, you need to be in the UK or to use a VPN:
Listen to Discussion from 2:15:32
UPDATE, JAN 9:
I joined Times Radio’s Ayesha Hazarika on Friday to cut through the disinformation and smears around the ICE killing of Renee Nicole Good.
Responding to the propaganda of Paul Gazelka, a former Republican Senator in Minnesota, I detail how the videos and witness statements establish that Good was slain, shot three times in the head, as she was slowly driving away from the scene. I describe how her killer and other ICE agents fled, prejudicing any investigation, while a colleague prevented Good from receiving medical assistance.
I ask Gazelka to agree on three points.
One, to stop smearing the name of Renee Nicole Good. Two, a joint investigation between Federal, state, and local authorities. Three, steps to ensure this does not happen again.
How does he respond?
ORIGINAL ENTRY, JAN 8: I joined Germany’s DW News on Wednesday night to describe and evaluate the killing of Renee Nicole Good, 37 (pictured) — a mother of three, a poet, and a “shitty guitar strummer”, in her words — by an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis.
Unsettled both by DW’s identification of Good as “a woman” without a name and by the opening question asking me about “competing narratives” over her killing, I respond:
Watch from 2:45:
Before discussing narratives, it is important to state the facts as we know them.
Renee Nicole Good, 37 years old, the mother of a 6-year-old who lived with her and her partner in Minneapolis — she was there watching as ICE agents were trying to detain people.
I describe how, when she tried to drive away as an ICE agent put his hand on her driver’s side window and challenged her, she was shot in the head 3 to 4 times by another agent. I explain that, contrary to the narrative of Trump officials, she was turning the car away from the agents and driving at slow speed.
There is no evidence that she was a “domestic terrorist”. She was a poet. She described herself as playing the guitar badly. She was well-liked by neighbors. She leaves behind her partner, her children, and her mother.
When the DW host tried to push all this away as facts still to be determined by a formal investigation, I cut in:
It is absolutely right that a formal investigation needs to be established. That is why the statement by Kristi Noem, the Director of Homeland Security, was so out of order. Speaking only minutes after the incident, without any investigation, without any attempt to establish the facts, she prejudged this as an act of domestic terrorism and smeared the victim.
I then consider the motives for the Trump Administration’s authoritarian exercise of power to “flood the area and sweep up immigrants with vast numbers of unidentified masked officers to intimidate communities so there is no resistance”.
