Truth - From Lawyer Oyer

Watch this.

The text.

It starts with this:

One of the most contradictory areas of U.S. policy this past year has been drug enforcement. I’ve put together a timeline — which I’ve also shared in video form on my socials — which I think will help to explain why many of us are so confused. Check it out.

January 20, 2025. Donald Trump signs an Executive Order designating drug cartels terrorist organizations, and declaring that “it is the policy of the United States to ensure the total elimination of [their] presence in the United States.”

Then goes through lots of contradictory stuff and then ends with this:

January 2026. Trump sends troops into Venezuela to capture their president, Nicolas Maduro, and try him in the United States on charges of drug trafficking. The charges against Maduro are almost identical to the ones that Trump pardoned Hernandez for.

So how can we reconcile this totally contradictory timeline? That’s exactly what we should be asking our elected officials. It’s not our job to make it make sense—it’s theirs. My focus in 2026 will be seeking accountability from those entrusted to run our country. I invite you to join me. You can be part of my accountability circle by subscribing to my channels, sharing this information, asking questions, and demanding answers. It’s what we deserve from our elected leaders.

Pass it on. 

 

 

 

 

 

If I Could Get A Follow-up Over To Senator McCormick

Remember this?

That was my blog post regarding Senator Dave McCormick's response to this blog post. 

In that first blog post, I wrote about how the DOJ's Civil Rights Division would not play a role in the investigation into the killing of Renee Good.

At the end of it I asked if the senator was OK with the Civil Rights Division being part of that investigation.

As part of his answer, McCormick wrote:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is currently conducting an independent investigation to determine the full facts and circumstances surrounding this loss of life. 

And this weekend, we learned that's not necessarily the case.

From The Washington Post: 

In the immediate aftermath of the death of Renée Good in Minneapolis, FBI agents launched a civil rights investigation into the actions of the immigration officer who shot her, according to three people familiar with the investigation.

An agent in Minnesota conducted an initial review of the shooting and determined that sufficient grounds existed to open a civil rights probe into the actions of Jonathan Ross, the officer who shot Good, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

The existence of the civil rights investigation stands in sharp contrast to public statements made by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who said on “Fox News Sunday” that the shooting of Good does not warrant a federal investigation.

Deputy AG Blanche said the shooting does not warrant a federal investigation. 

The Guardian has more:

“Is the FBI conducting an investigation into that agent, into the shooting?” Blanche was asked, in response to criticism from Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz.

“Look, what happened that day has been reviewed by millions and millions of Americans because it was recorded on phones,” Blanche said. “The department of justice, our civil rights unit, we don’t just go out and investigate every time an officer is forced to defend himself against somebody putting his life in danger. We never do.”

“The department of justice doesn’t just stand up and investigate because some congressman thinks we should, because some governor thinks that we should,” Blanche said. “We investigate when it’s appropriate to investigate and that is not the case here.

“We are not going to bow to pressure from the media, bow to pressure from politicians, and do something that we never do – not under this administration, not under the last administration. So no, we are not investigating.”

There it is again.

So I'll ask again, Senator. Are you OK with this? And if so, why?

 

A Reminder -

 After pointing out (again) that I am not an attorney, let's start right here:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

That's the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution. 

So can they just stop you to to ask you for your papers?

Generally, no.

Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47 (1979)

The application of the Texas statute to detain appellant and require him to identify himself violated the Fourth Amendment because the officers lacked any reasonable suspicion to believe that appellant was engaged or had engaged in criminal conduct. Detaining appellant to require him to identify himself constituted a seizure of his person subject to the requirement of the Fourth Amendment that the seizure be "reasonable." 

So you unless there's any "reasonable suspicion" that you're doing something criminal, they simply can't just ask you for your papers.

 

 

Pedophile Protector

From Reuters:

Donald Trump raised his middle finger and appeared to direct profanity toward a Michigan auto plant worker who criticized the U.S. president's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein controversy during a visit on Tuesday, video circulating online showed. 

The entertainment site TMZ first published video of the exchange, and the White House did not dispute its authenticity.

You can read the TMZ reporting here.

An interesting dichotomy in all this. From the Detroit Free Press:

When asked about a video clip of the incident, Ford spokesman Dave Tovar emailed a statement saying the company had a great event and is proud of how employees represented Ford. 

"We’ve seen the clip you’re referring to," Tovar said. "One of our core values is respect and we don’t condone anyone saying anything inappropriate like that within our facilities. When that happens, we have a process to deal with it, but we don’t get into specific personnel matters."

On the other hand from USAToday:

"A lunatic was wildly screaming expletives in a complete fit of rage, and the President gave an appropriate and unambiguous response," Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement to USA TODAY.

So the the guy exercising his First Amendment rights by shouting the truth at Trump gets suspended and the White House responds by saying that he's a lunatic.

Where are the rest of the Epstein files, by the way? 

 

 

 

All of us

There is now video after video after video of ICE snatching people off the streets and out of cars, assaulting them, disappearing them for hours or all together. Many times these are US citizens...even minor US citizens. They're actually going door to door now. No warrants. No cause. 

Report after report of detainees being denied medical care and worse still, over 30 people died in ICE custody last year -- the most in over two decades. It should be noted that no ICE agents have died despite how many times we are told they are in terrible danger.

And now of course, a 37 year old mother of three, Renee Good, shot in the head three times and killed by ICE in broad daylight. The shooter fleeing the scene with his gun and any bodily evidence. There are now resignations from the DOJ's Civil Rights Division and federal prosecutors in the U.S. attorney's office based in Minneapolis over the way the shooting is being handled or should we say mishandled. The FBI has refused to cooperate in any way with local and State officials.

The President, the Vice President, and the Secretary of Homeland Security all labeling Good as a domestic terrorist and her killer innocent minutes after the shooting. The Secretary of Homeland Security doing so behind a podium labeled with an actual Nazi/fascist slogan.

And despite the bot comments in every news story on the subject claiming that all she had to do was comply (the way they have any time any Black person has been wrongly hurt by police), the majority of the American public does not agree. Poll after poll shows that the majority believe the shooter was in the wrong, the majority believe that ICE is acting unlawfully, and 47% want ICE abolished -- an opinion that would have been considered wildly radical mere months ago.

What is happening in Minneapolis is insanity. It is the government declaring war on the city and everyone in it including US citizens. 

Anything that you can do at this moment, whether protesting, or contacting your elected officials, or writing letters to the editor, or speaking to your friends and family about this.-- literally anything -- needs to be done and needs to be done right now. We are all of us at war.

Senator McCormick Responds

Today is January 14.

On January 12, I posted this and sent the link to Pennsylvania Senator Dave McCormick's office.

Yesterday, January 13, I got an email response.

It's notable for what it says and what it doesn't say.

After thanking me for "sharing" my thoughts on the "recent fatal shooting in Minneapolis" the Senator writes:

I support ICE officers and other federal law enforcement personnel who risk their lives daily to protect our communities and uphold the rule of law. The tragic events in Minnesota are deeply concerning and warrant a full and transparent investigation to ensure the facts are clearly established and public confidence is maintained. 

Senator McCormick leaves out the part that the DOJ's Civil Rights Division, the part of the DOJ that usually takes the lead in such high profile investigations, will not be participating in this investigation - as per the orders of the Trump DOJ.

In his next paragraph, there's this sentence:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is currently conducting an independent investigation to determine the full facts and circumstances surrounding this loss of life. 

He leaves out how senior Justice Department officials overruled the decision to have the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension - a state agency that reviews police shootings - cooperate in the investigation.

And take a look at the other sentence in that paragraph:

On January 7, 2026, Renee Nicole Good was fatally shot during a federal immigration enforcement operation in south Minneapolis.  

Note the passive voice there. How "Renee Nicole Good was fatally shot..." and how there's no mention of who fatally shot Renee Good (not even with the necessary "alleged").

Then there's the next paragraph:

I also believe that we must all work to lower the temperature of our public discourse. While strong disagreements are a part of our democratic system and should be debated vigorously, inflammatory rhetoric and violent protests, led by paid activists, have put law enforcement officers and others at risk. The statistics are troubling: assaults on ICE officers have increased by 1,347 percent, and reported death threats have risen by more than 8,000 percent compared to this time last year. Dehumanizing rhetoric distorts reality and creates a dangerous climate where violence becomes the inevitable next step.  

Senator McCormick leaves out how, even before the investigation started, Donald Trump and DHS Secretary Noem were asserting "facts" that were either not supported by evidence or completely untrue (that Good was a domestic terrorist or how she "ran over" the officer).

But sure, let's "lower the temperature of our public discourse."

Then there's the statistics.  They come directly from the aforementioned Secretary Noem's DHS, released January 8 - the day after Renee Good's killing by an ICE officer.

Have these statistics been independently verified? How much trust should we put in them, given the context?

Bottom line, Senator: One of Donald Trump's ICE agents killed Renee Good and it looks an awful lot like Donald Trump's DOJ is doing its weaponized best to cover it up. 

Here's the letter from Sen McCormick:

 

 

And Now...War Crimes

From The New York Times:

The Pentagon used a secret aircraft painted to look like a civilian plane in its first attack on a boat that the Trump administration said was smuggling drugs, killing 11 people last September, according to officials briefed on the matter. The aircraft also carried its munitions inside the fuselage, rather than visibly under its wings, they said.

And:

Retired Maj. Gen. Steven J. Lepper, a former deputy judge advocate general for the United States Air Force, said that if the aircraft had been painted in a way that disguised its military nature and got close enough for the people on the boat to see it — tricking them into failing to realize they should take evasive action or surrender to survive — that was a war crime under armed-conflict standards.

“Shielding your identity is an element of perfidy,” he said. “If the aircraft flying above is not identifiable as a combatant aircraft, it should not be engaged in combatant activity.”

Perfidy.

Let's look at that.

From the Geneva Convention

Article 37 - Prohibition of perfidy

 

  1. It is prohibited to kill, injure or capture an adversary by resort to perfidy. Acts inviting the confidence of an adversary to lead him to believe that he is entitled to, or is obliged to accord, protection under the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, with intent to betray that confidence, shall constitute perfidy. The following acts are examples of perfidy: 

 

  (c) the feigning of civilian, non-combatant status        

From the DOD Law of War Manual: 

5.22.2 Perfidy - “Kill or Wound”. It is prohibited to use perfidy to kill or wound the enemy. 

And the US Navy/Marines/Coast Guard Handbook on Naval Operations:

Honor prohibits perfidy, the misuse of certain signs, fighting in the enemy’s uniform, feigning nonhostile relations in order to seek a military advantage...

And so on.

Perfidy. Prohibited. War crime. 

 

 

The Cover-up Of Renee Good's Killing

H/t to Liz Oyer.

From CBS:

Prosecutors in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division were told they will not play a role in the ongoing investigation into a fatal shooting of a woman in Minneapolis by a federal immigration officer, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

Leadership in the Civil Rights Division, overseen by Harmeet Dhillon, informed staff in the division's criminal section that there would not be an investigation, two sources said. Normally, after a high-profile incident involving a fatal shooting by an officer, attorneys from the criminal section fly out to the scene. Multiple career prosecutors offered to do so in this case, but they were told not to do so, one of the sources added. 

While investigations into the excessive use of force can be pursued solely by a U.S. Attorney's office without direct involvement from the Civil Rights Division, it is customary for the division's federal prosecutors to take the lead on high-profile investigations like the one in Minnesota.

From the Civil Rights Division website:

Congress created the Civil Rights Division in 1957 to uphold the civil and constitutional rights of all Americans, particularly some of the most vulnerable members of our society. The Division enforces federal statutes prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, disability, religion, familial status, military status and national origin.

Except, apparently, Renee Good - who was killed by an ICE agent a few days ago. 

From another section of that same website, we learn that the Civil Rights Division, under 18 U.S.C. § 242 is tasked to investigate "Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law" specifically:

This provision makes it a crime for someone acting under color of law to willfully deprive a person of a right or privilege protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States. It is not necessary that the offense be motivated by racial bias or by any other animus.

Defendants act under color of law when they wield power vested by a government entity.  Those prosecuted under the statute typically include police officers, sheriff’s deputies, and prison guards.  However other government actors, such as judges, district attorneys, other public officials, and public school employees can also act under color of law and can be prosecuted under this statute.

This apparently doesn't apply to Renee Good, who was killed by one of Trump's ICE agents a few days ago.

Interesting part of the story, Harmeet Dhillon is in fact an immigrant herself - born in India and grew up in The Bronx and then North Carolina and became a US citizen when she was 12. She's the one who, I suppose, decided against using the Civil Rights Division to investigate an ICE agent who killed a US citizen.

Pennsylvania Senator Dave McCormick also voted to confirm Dhillon as head of that division. 

Senator McCormick, are you OK with the Civil Rights Division not investigating the killing of Renee Good?