As a leftist, I’m heartened by the reactions of the citizens of Minneapolis and its neighboring municipalities to ICE’s assault against their non-citizen neighbors. The killing of Renee Good makes the risk of confronting illiterate armed paramilitaries hopped up on aggression-fueling steroids brutally clear. Plus, this is Minnesota in January. Mixing it up with government goons in the tundra isn’t a weekend walk in the park, or a performative, city-licensed, thrice-yearly “No Kings” stroll down Fifth Avenue.

I was similarly pleased by previous spasms of protest: Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street, March for Our Lives, Ferguson, Women’s Marches, the Battle of Seattle. America has leftists. Leftists get angry. Leftists show up.

This is not, at least totally, a conservative country. You wouldn’t know that from our news media. I’m still waiting to see an on-air discussion about a foreign policy crisis in which a guest suggests it’s not our business and that we shouldn’t get involved.

Peaceful protests and violent uprisings like the Los Angeles riots prove that leftists exist.

We exist. But we don’t last.

The trouble is, the American Left post-1970 is congenitally incapable of sustained street activism, of keeping up the energy level beyond a few months at a time—at most. Identity-based movements like MeToo overshoot, discredit themselves and collapse as they eat their own. Issue-oriented demonstrations like the anti-Iraq War marches fade away as defeat breeds demoralization. Because movements based on class- and economic-driven grievances pose the greatest threat to ruling elites, the system crushes them with violent force, as Obama did to Occupy.

Causes come and go, as do expressions of support and disapproval. But nothing close to a sustained left-wing political movement, or party, takes flight.

Millions of words have been strung together to try to explain why Americans haven’t formed a socialist or other leftist force able to counter the government, corporations and their reactionary allies in the media long enough and forcefully enough to win battles for issues like abortion rights and against problems like deindustrialization. Some of those words were mine. Here, now, I want to explain why the left keeps losing and why our protest movements keep running out of steam.

It’s the lack of a broad-based, grassroots organization, stupid.

Why don’t we have such an organization? Because leftists keep getting distracted by the Democratic Party, stupid.

When Americans protest, it’s usually in reaction to a news event. A white cop kills an unarmed Black man or there’s a mass shooting at a school. Obviously, these demonstrations address an underlying issue: racism, militarization of the police, gun control, school security. Because they are reactive, however, the rage inevitably subsides. That’s how rage works. It ebbs. We pack up our placards and go home.

Sometimes a movement coalesces around an issue without any specific trigger. After years of rising income inequality, Occupy Wall Street was announced in a magazine. MeToo centered around a spreadsheet passed around by women that listed men and their alleged depredations in the workplace. Those issue-focused movements lasted longer. After everything was said and argued over, they fizzled out.

A leftist organization would perform two functions we desperately need. First, it would act as an “in case of emergency, break glass” force that could be called upon to act quickly, in force, when and where and as needed. The powers that be would pay more attention if, the next time one of their cops murdered one of us, millions of Americans went on strike.

An organization could cross-pollinate the left with the solidarity a real left needs in order to succeed. Environmentalists could support feminists; economic Marxists could come to the aid of racial justice warriors.

Most importantly, an organization could reframe activism. Rather than responding to each outrage à la carte, only to see interest and energy peter out after having begun only with those who care most about that one issue, a real left organization—as exists in many other countries—could cast the struggle for change as a permanent commitment to a lifetime of fighting the system.

When you join a book club, you choose a new book to read after you discuss the last one. Reading isn’t a one-time thing. The religiously devout go to church weekly, but they also study and volunteer and proselytize and attend prayer meetings. When you’re a true fan of a sports team, you watch and cheer through thick and thin. Only in America is politics so remarkably unsustained and undemanding of people’s time and attention.

When I reference “politics,” I’m talking about opposition outside electoral, two-party nonsense. A leftist organization trains its members, educates them, organizes them, prepares them for whatever may be needed in the future. Rather than react to horrific headlines, it develops a disciplined, consistent platform of issues for which it fights relentlessly, day after day, for years, until victory is achieved—forever, if need be. It sets agendas. Our enemies—the government, Trump, ICE, Wall Street, the warmongers—work every single day. How can we defeat them in our current state?

We need organization and we need focus. Our politics should center around the politics that serve us—nothing else deserves our participation.

Every vote you cast for the Democrats legitimizes their party. Every minute you spend thinking about them or canvassing for them or agitating for them over workplace water coolers and family dinners is a minute sucked away from actual struggle. Giving even the slightest consideration to the possibility that Democrats might someday come through for us on some issue of note is a foolish distraction, self-delusion, pure stupidity.

By all means, keep on protesting in response to the latest atrocity. But if you really want to throw off the shackles of the systemic oppression that creates the incidents that make you so angry, you’ve also got to start building a national leftist organization, outside the Democratic distraction machine, from the bottom up.

(Ted Rall, the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, is the author of “Never Mind the Democrats. Here’s What’s Left.” Subscribe: tedrall.Substack.com. He is co-host of the podcast “DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou.”)

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•  According to the DOJ, there was a secret Trump Administration agreement between DOGE employee and an unidentified political advocacy group to turn over Americans’ confidential Social Security Administration data to try to overturn election results in certain states

• The Greenland Crisis has not only sparked full-out trade war but rattled Western allies at the World Economic Forum at Davos. Always helpful, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent calls Denmark “irrelevant” after Denmark sells off $100 million in US Treasury bonds and notes. Greenlanders prepare for a possible US invasion.

• Canada’s Mark Carney calls for a new New World Order in which the US is no longer considered reliable.

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The Vichy puppet regime in Nazi-occupied France organized a so-called “Passive Resistance” movement, akin to civil defense, to pretend that it was legitimate. Members were issued whistles rather than guns and were instructed to blow them hard if they saw something suspicious. In what passes for the American Left today, those who “resist” ICE are given whistles and told to blow them when they see ICE deportation agents in their neighborhoods.

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• Trump tells Norway that being snubbed for the Nobel Peace Prize makes him think less about peace and more about what’s good for the US—so he’ll continue to press to somehow acquire Greenland. Trump shared a private text from Macron wondering WTF. America’s top Catholic archbishops denounce Trump’s aggressive foreign policy against Venezuela and Greenland.

• China, Russia and Turkey invited to join Trump’s Gaza “Board of Peace.”

• BLM protest against ICE pastor in Minneapolis investigated by AG Pam Bondi. A Hmong man was dragged out of his home naked into the bitter cold by ICE—he’s a US citizen.

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Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST.

Today we discuss:

•  The US Army orders 1,500 troops stationed in Alaska to prepare for possible deployment to Minnesota in preparation for a possible Trump declaration of the Insurrection Act. Noem denies ICE using chemical agents against peaceful Minnesotans, then backtracks. And the FBI is asking agents to go to Minneapolis for “temporary duty.” Medical examiner to rule killing of detainee by ICE officers in El Paso as homicide. And: FBI killed investigation into shooting of Renee Good.

• The Greenland Crisis has broken out into full-out trade war between the US and the EU. $108 billion in tariffs against US products go into effect February 1.

• Kamala Harris’ team asked Josh Shapiro if he had ever been an Israeli agent.

• There’s not actually anything inside Trump’s one-page “Great Healthcare Plan.” Does it matter?

• Portuguese elections: Socialist Party’s Antonio Jose Seguro and far-right Andre Ventura head to a run-off.

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After Renee Good was shot to death by an ICE agent in Minneapolis, right-wing defenders of the Trump administration suggested that she had brought it upon herself by failing to comply with her killers’ orders.

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Scott Stantis of The Chicago Tribune fills in for John today.

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•  As Trump mulls invoking the Insurrection Act against Minnesota, the first poll after ICE gunned down Renee Good—with four shots—shows most Americans disapprove of the agency and its violent tactics. Also: ICE shoots another man and gasses a family of six trying to escape the chaos in Minneapolis, where ICE is targeting daycare centers.

•  France, Germany, Sweden and Norway rush troops to Greenland as a shown of force against the United States. Even lickspittle Republicans are pushing back against an invasion.

• María Corina Machado, Venezuela’s extreme-right politician and neoliberal darling, gave her Nobel Peace Prize to The Donald.

• Even as Israel continues to kill Palestinians in Gaza, Israel and the US announce phase two of their ceasefire: the Board of Peace.

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When widespread protests erupted in Iran over soaring inflation and high living costs, the Trump Administration openly supported the demonstrators and even pledged to launch military strikes against Iran if its security forces used violence against them. In the United States, however, when similar protests occurred — such as those following the killing of a woman by ICE in Minneapolis — the official response was strikingly different.

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•  Trump caves in, reversing $2 billion in cuts to mental health and addiction programs after one day, after bipartisan pushback.

•  75% of Americans don’t want the US to take control of Greenland.

• Josh Hawley (R-MO) wimps out, and joins Todd Young (R-IN) in voting against a War Powers Resolution requiring Congressional approval for Trump’s war against Venezuela that they initially supported.

• Elon Musk’s Grok AI will no longer let users virtually “undress” people.

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•  Bill and Hillary Clinton tell the House Oversight Committee say they’ve “had enough” of the Epstein investigation and won’t testify despite a subpoena. James Comer says he’ll hold the former First Couple in contempt of Congress.

•  Iran says it may attack US military bases if the US attacks it again. Protesters claim 2,400 of their own have been killed in Iran.

• Ogala Sioux and Lakota Nation officials say tribal members are being targeted in Minnesota and held hostage by ICE to coerce them into allowing ICE operations on tribal land. HHS outnumbers cops in Minneapolis. And: federal prosecutors are resigning over the DOJ’s instructions to go after Renee Good’s widow.

• Japan and South Korea cozy up to confront China.

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The post What Happens on Epstein Island Stays on Epstein Island | DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

Among modern industrialized nations, the United States stands out as one of the very few that still lacks universal healthcare. Why do Americans accept this situation?

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•  The presumption that the FBI can be trusted to investigate the killing of activist Renee Good by ICE agent Jon Ross fairly has been all but destroyed by White House statements, freezing out local authorities, and  the DOJ’s refusal to allow its civil rights experts to weigh in. Does it matter if the government abandons all pretense of objectivity?

•  As if life didn’t suck enough for Gazans who have survived the genocide, severe storms are ripping away the tents of hundreds of thousands of refugees.

• Western analysts are eagerly hoping for revolution in Iran.

• Malaysia and Indonesia block Grok over deep-fake porn. Even Renee Good has been virtually undressed.

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The killing of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent in a Minneapolis suburb has prompted a familiar debate over civil disobedience and government policing of the sort that typically follows these incidents, in which justification of the use of force, or lack thereof, depends on your political stance. There is, however, an aspect here that everyone ought to be able to agree about regardless of where they stand on the libertarian-to-authoritarian spectrum: ICE behaves highly unprofessionally.

All you have to do is look at them. Cops wear matching uniforms. So do soldiers. Cops identify themselves and drive clearly marked vehicles. Soldiers even identify themselves to the enemy if they’re captured in battle. ICE agents—assuming the unidentified, masked dudes terrorizing cities are actually ICE and not rapists and kidnappers masquerading as government deporters—wear a hodgepodge of off-the-shelf vests and insignia, cruise around in rented vehicles, and illegally change their license plates daily to avoid accountability.

ICE’s defenders argue that Jonathan Ross was justified in using deadly force because she was a “domestic terrorist” who had “weaponized her vehicle,” in the words of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and had to defend himself. Policing experts who have examined videos of Good’s death point out that a properly-trained law enforcement officer never should have been standing in front (or behind) her car in the first place—in other words, he shouldn’t have been in a position to make that determination. Noem’s intemperate description of a dead American, a mother of three, reminds us that her administration only cares about U.S. citizens who voted for Trump and support his policies.

Other aspects of the videotaped encounter point to an organization for whom professionalism appears to be an alien concern.

Ross and his colleagues rapidly escalate a situation that, let’s bear in mind, begins with an unarmed woman sitting in her car, smiling. Sure, she’s sarcastic. Sure, her car is parked diagonally, partly impeding traffic. It’s easy to see why ICE agents might feel irritated—that, after all, is one of the goals of a passive-resistance tactic like ICE Watch—but law enforcement officers are supposed to calmly refrain from reactions based on feeling triggered or provoked. Good may have been annoying. She certainly wasn’t dangerous.

Multiple agents race toward Good’s car. Why the urgency? She hasn’t moved in minutes. They shout. Why not talk normally? They shout conflicting commands—one tells her to leave, while Ross orders her to “get out of the fucking car!” One agent should do the talking, to avoid confusion and to avoid a fight-or-flight response. Cursing conveys hostility and raises the temperature. Federal officers should not swear at the public who pays their salary.

Inexplicably, because Ross was injured last year when he did the same thing and police are trained never to do it, he reaches through Good’s car window to try to open her door. Good does what many people would do in such a situation, especially if one is a woman and the intruder is a heavily-armed masked male—she pushes the gas. Never mind Good; Ross endangered himself and others with his reckless actions.

As a coda to an episode epitomizing unprofessionalism, someone—Ross or another agent—is heard shouting “fucking bitch” as Good begins to move.

This sound is captured on video that should not exist. Ross was holding his personal cellphone to record the encounter. His other hand holds his gun. But he was wearing a body camera. “Now that we can see he’s holding a gun in one hand and a cellphone in the other [hand] filming, I want to see the officer training that permits that,” Geoff Alpert, a criminology professor at the University of South Carolina, told NPR. Why did Ross constrain himself, unless it was to create images he could control and edit?

Adding to the chaotic impression created by manic, masked, armed men running around the suburbs in unmarked vehicles in search of anyone who looks vaguely Latino, the ICE paramilitaries allowed Ross to flee the scene.

As Good sat in her car dying, they refused to allow a physician bystander to attend to her.

“It’d be unprofessional to comment on what I think happened in that situation,” border czar Tom Homan, a former ICE director, initially told CBS News. Noem, as well as the president and vice president, stated within hours of the shooting that Good was at fault and a “domestic terrorist,” and that the ICE agent was blameless. A few days later, official government social media feeds were calling for citizens to defend ICE.

That the Trump Administration falls short of basic standards of professionalism is beyond dispute. The question is, are Trump’s hiring managers incompetent? Or is the deprofessionalization of government an intentional tactic deployed by the first president to have neither political nor military experience? If ICE—the agency receiving the biggest pay increase and hiring the most new workers­—is an indication, the answer is clearly yes. Just about any thug over age 18 with a pulse can get hired by ICE: drug addicts, gangsters, white nationalists, criminals, illiterate morons.

As the Nazis learned in the 1930s underqualified workers, especially very young ones and those on the margins of legality, are likelier to be malleable. They’ll probably be willing to bend the law. Knowing that they’re overpaid and given more responsibility than they deserve—and that they’d never find as good a job anywhere else—ICE recruits may not be intelligent or kind or thoughtful, but they will be loyal. They’ll do what they’re told, no matter how violent or unethical.

The Trump Administration will require this blind obedience as they segue from imprisoning illegal immigrants to jailing American citizens.

(Ted Rall, the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, is the author of “Never Mind the Democrats. Here’s What’s Left.” Subscribe: tedrall.Substack.com. He is co-host of the podcast “DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou.”)

The post For Trump, Deprofessionalizing Government Is a Feature appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

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•  Iran threatens to retaliate if the US follows through on its threat to militarily attack to defend protesters, while requesting negotiations with the White House.

•  Back home in the US, the Trump Administration characterizes anti-ICE protesters as domestic terrorists and threatens to send in more ICE forces.

• Trump threatens to veto extension of Obamacare subsidies.

• Trump to meet with Denmark over Greenland.

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The post We Love (Iranian) Protesters | DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

Under Article V of the NATO Charter, an armed attack against one NATO member is considered an attack against all members, including the United States itself. If the U.S. were to carry out its threat to attack Greenland—a Danish territory, and Denmark being a close NATO ally—this would create a highly bizarre and unprecedented situation.

The post Who Will Run Greenland Afterward? appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.