It has been a week of stunning events and dangerous rhetorical excesses. Currently the political debate is divided over the question of when government officials can use deadly force against people who are protesting or ignoring orders from those officials. This question is steeped in politics, as it so often is. Whether a person deserves death at the hands of the state almost always has a political element to it, which is not exactly a new thing.

Here's a quick test, just to prove the point. If there is an unruly crowd of people hurling not just verbal abuse but physical objects -- snowballs loaded with ice, chunks of rock pried up from the street, frozen horse manure, and anything else they can get their hands on and throw -- at a contingent of government officers, some of whom were being knocked to the ground and injured by the incoming rain of projectiles, would they be justified if they shot into the crowd in their own self-defense -- and killed some of the crowd?

Well, it would depend on your politics and the politics of the government. As it did, when it happened. Those supporting the government officers brushed the incident off as "the day when some persons were unfortunately killed." Those opposed to the government officers painted a much more visceral picture (emphasis in original):

[C]ome widowed mourner, here satiate thy grief; behold thy murdered husband gasping on the ground, and to complete the pompous show of wretchedness bring in each hand thy infant children to bewail their father's fate -- take heed, ye infant babes, lest, whilst your streaming eyes are fixed on the ghastly corpse, your feet slide on the stones bespattered with your father's brains.

When the officers were prosecuted, their defense lawyer even pointedly referred to the crowd as a "mob." As you may have already guessed, that defense lawyer was none other than John Adams, and the soldiers he was defending (six of whom he got acquitted) were the ones who had fired into the crowd in the "Boston Massacre."

Americans are taught this story as a tale of patriotic martyrdom. British schoolbooks probably teach it differently, one would assume.

[Technical Note: We cannot link to either of those two quotes, since to the best of our knowledge they only exist online behind a serious paywall, but the first one ("some persons were unfortunately killed") was from a letter to the editor from "Massachusettensis" (actually Daniel Leonard, a Loyalist) printed in the "Monday, December 12, to Monday, December 19, 1774" edition of the Massachusetts Gazette and the Boston Post-Boy and Advertiser; while the second quote ("bespattered with your father's brains") was published on March 17, 1775 (shortly after the first anniversary of the incident), by the Boston Gazette.]

But let's get back to the current century, shall we? This week had a rather jarring juxtaposition of two completely contradictory viewpoints on the use of force by government officers -- which both came from official channels of the sitting government. The first came when the White House unveiled a webpage marking the fifth anniversary of the January 6th riot and insurrection attempt, by a violent mob who attacked federal police officers at the U.S. Capitol while forcing their way into the building in an effort to stop Congress from certifying a presidential election. We wrote about this disgusting display of gaslighting earlier this week, but suffice it to say that the Trump administration put forth a version of events that was completely contradictory to what virtually every American witnessed with their own eyes that day. Somehow, it was the cops (and Democrats, of course) who were to blame for the entire incident, and the rioters and insurrectionists were "patriots" and peaceful protestors. If you want to see your tax dollars at work producing pure propaganda, take a look. However, if you don't want to be disgusted and enraged, we would recommend that you give it a pass.

Later in the week, an ICE agent shot and killed a woman in a vehicle, in an event that was also caught on camera. The administration instantly leapt into propaganda mode, calling the woman a "domestic terrorist" who was attacking a federal officer who was in fear for his life. This came from the highest levels. Donald Trump jumped in with his take: "[T]he woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer, who seems to have shot her in self-defense. Based on the attached clip, it is hard to believe he is alive, but is now recovering in the hospital." Actually, it's pretty easy to believe that he is alive, since the videos of the event clearly show him walking around afterwards with no apparent injuries whatsoever. The videos also clearly show he was not, in fact, run over at all -- not even close.

Several administration officials -- from the vice president (who called her a "deranged leftist," among other things) on down -- darkly warned that this was (obviously, to them) some sort of organized resistance movement. Kristi Noem, the secretary of Homeland Security, said she would tell the Justice Department to "prosecute it as domestic terrorism, because it is clear that it's being coordinated. People are being trained and told how to use their vehicles to impede law enforcement operations and then to run over anybody who gets in their way."

With absolutely zero sense of irony, one Republican congressman, Wesley Hunt, summed this all up: "The bottom line is this: When a federal officer gives you instructions, you abide by them and then you get to keep your life." Failure to obey is a capital offense, in other words.

It's strange, isn't it, how none of this thinking applied to the death of Ashli Babbitt, as far as Republicans are concerned. She was the woman shot while attempting to forcibly breach a barricade at the door to the United States House of Representatives on January 6th. Inside the chamber, members of Congress were cowering in fear for their lives as the mob tried to get at them. This is the same mob that had earlier been chanting: "Hang Mike Pence!" Babbitt certainly wasn't obeying any instructions from federal officers, she was instead violently attacking them as part of an angry mob. But to Trump and the MAGA base, she is now seen as some sort of patriot martyr, much as Americans are taught to see those killed in the Boston Massacre.

Salon had an interesting commentary on all of this, in an article titled "ICE Is Not The Victim." After detailing the many ways in which ICE had been trying to paint itself as victims even before the shooting, it makes a very valid point:

MAGA self-victimization isn't just beneath contempt. It's also, as we saw in this shooting, dangerous. It resembles the behavior that psychologists have long documented in abusive partners, which goes under the acronym DARVO for "Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender." First, deny the abuse. When confronted with evidence, attack the victim to imply she had it coming. Then declare you're the real victim here, and you were forced to hit, rape or, in this case, shoot the victim because [fill in lie about how mean she was]. The ease in which all of MAGA immediately reverted to the psychological habits of self-pitying wife-beaters should give us all pause.

The best way to combat naked government propaganda is to stand up and say: "But that's not what happened!" You can believe the propaganda, or you can believe what you can plainly see with your own eyes. A U.S. citizen was gunned down on a city street because she wasn't doing what the cops told her to do. She was trying to drive away, and she was murdered. Federal officers appear on American streets without any identification, dressed and armed for full-on warfare, and they wear masks to hide their identities. And if you don't instantly obey them, you could be killed. After which, the entire weight of the federal government will try to demonize you while fully supporting the officer who pulled the trigger. Minnesota's judicial system has been shouldered aside, and the F.B.I. has taken over the "investigation" (which requires those scare quotes to indicate it is nothing of the sort). Full exoneration will be forthcoming shortly.

This is the country we all now live in.

In further evidence that America is now a rogue nation, the week started off with an invasion of a foreign country. The U.S. military attacked Venezuela and snatched its leader and hauled him back to an American prison. Donald Trump was so happy with the outcome that he immediately began musing over which country would be next -- Mexico? Colombia? Cuba? Greenland?

After the raid, Trump announced he would now "run" Venezuela, and that we were just going to steal all their oil for the foreseeable future. We're going to take their oil, we're going to sell it, and then maybe we'll give some of the money back to "the Venezuelan people," if we're in a good mood. All of this is openly admitted by the president. It's all about the oil, which he will cheerfully tell anyone who asks.

We would accuse any other country on Earth who did such a thing of "piracy" and "extortion" and "imperialism," and we'd be right. We are not the world's policeman any more, we are instead something akin to the world's biggest organized crime network instead.

In the midst of all this, Trump gave an interview to the New York Times, where he sounds not just like a monarch but like an emperor in the imperial days of colonization:

President Trump declared on Wednesday evening that his power as commander in chief is constrained only by his "own morality," brushing aside international law and other checks on his ability to use military might to strike, invade or coerce nations around the world.

Asked in a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times if there were any limits on his global powers, Mr. Trump said: "Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It's the only thing that can stop me."

"I don't need international law," he added.

Louis XIV would doubtlessly have approved. This is not just: "L'État, c'est moi," it is in fact closer to: "Le Monde, c'est moi."

And, sadly, it's now the world we all live in.

At least some Republicans in Congress seem to be waking up. The Senate actually passed a measure this week -- with five Republican votes! -- to prohibit Donald Trump from using the military to attack Venezuela again. It's nowhere near enough to overcome a presidential veto (and the House probably won't even bring it up for a vote), but at least there are signs of life from the spineless congressional Republicans. Also this week, the House passed an extension (written by Democrats, with no Republican agenda items included) of the Obamacare subsidies which expired at the start of this month. This could pressure the Senate to act, which could avoid another government shutdown at the end of the month.

Whether this indicates a real trend of Republicans bucking their own party's president on issues which could be used against them in the midterm elections or not is not clear as of yet. But it is at least an encouraging note to end on, after a very tough week all around.

We have a joint Honorable Mention award to hand out, before we get to the main award. This week, a sort of détente was reached between New York Governor Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Hochul is now going to work with Mamdani to achieve one of his biggest campaign promises, it seems. Here's the story:

Gov. Kathy Hochul unveiled a sweeping plan Thursday to provide free child care for children under five throughout New York state -- a significant step toward enacting a key campaign pledge for New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Hochul announced a partnership with Mamdani to provide free child care for 2-year-olds in New York City, with the state covering the full cost of the first two years of the initiative without raising any new taxes. The announcement comes after Mamdani made universal child care a focal point of his affordability-focused campaign.

At the same time, Hochul will pledge to make pre-kindergarten access fully available statewide, a move she aims to complete by the 2028-29 school year.

All told, nearly 100,000 additional children would be eligible for child care, pre-K, subsidies or other community programs, the governor’s office said. Fully universal child care is expected to be available throughout New York by 2030.

That's great news, and it normally would have qualified both Hochul and Mamdani for the big award, but since the plan has yet to be enacted by the legislature, we're going to save that until it is signed into law.

We also have a joint Honorable Mention award for all the Democratic members of the House of Representatives this week, for getting a three-year extension of the Obamacare subsidies passed. They had to force Speaker Mike Johnson to hold the vote (with the help of some very worried swing-district Republicans), and in the end an impressive 17 Republicans voted with them to pass the measure. It isn't going to make it into law as written, but it does increase the pressure on the Senate to now act on some sort of compromise bill (which they may do as early as next week).

But the first winner of the Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week award was Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, who was thrust into the national spotlight this week by the ICE shooting in his city, and who did an admirable job of countering the false narrative being put forward by Donald Trump and his administration immediately after the shooting. He bluntly called all the claims the administration made "bullshit" and did not mince his words when offering some advice to ICE:

This was an agent recklessly using power that resulted in somebody dying, getting killed. There's little I can say that will make this situation better, but I do have a message for our community and our city and for ICE. To ICE: Get the fuck out of Minneapolis. We do not want you here.

Later, when called out for the language that he used, Frey responded: "I stand by my statements. I dropped an F-bomb, they killed somebody. Which one of those is more inflammatory? I'm going with the 'killing somebody.'"

Frey will share the MIDOTW award with Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as well. Before the shooting took place, Walz made the stunning announcement that he was ending his bid for re-election as governor. The reason was not that he thought he was going to lose, but rather that he feared that the president of the United States was going to use him as a reason to retaliate against the citizens of his state. Trump was going to cut off funding and otherwise harass Minnesota, and Walz saw stepping out of the race as a possible way to defuse the situation. In fact, ICE flooding 2,000 agents into Minneapolis was part of that retribution.

Walz deserves his own MIDOTW award not only for his selfless political act, but also for the way he responded to the shooting:

"Maybe we're at their McCarthy moment," [Minnesota Governor Tim] Walz said, referring to a moment in the 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings when counsel for the U.S. Army confronted Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wisconsin) with the line, "Have you no sense of decency, sir?"

Walz continued: "Do you have no decency? Do you have no decency? We have someone dead, in their car, for no reason whatsoever."

He blamed the death on the federal government's "dangerous, sensationalized operations."

"What we're seeing is the consequences of governance designed to generate fear, headlines and conflict," he said. "It's governing by reality TV, and today, that recklessness cost someone their life."

When the government is actively demonizing Americans and putting out propaganda to justify killing them, prominent people need to stand up and call them on their "bullshit." Both Jacob Frey and Tim Walz did an admirable job of doing so this week, which is why they are the winners of this week's Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week award.

[Congratulate Minnesota Governor Tim Walz on his official contact page, and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey on his official contact page, to let them know you appreciate their efforts.]

In Congress and elsewhere, Democrats were admirably united this week. There were no dissenting votes in either the House or Senate on important Democratic priorities, and Democrats across the spectrum condemned the Trump administration's overreaches with one voice. So we're going to put the Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week back on the shelf until next Friday.

Volume 823 (1/9/26)

We start on a positive note and end with a big heaping helping of scorn this week. It's been quite a while since we wrote one of these Friday columns, but as usual we're not going to even attempt going back to mid-December and catalogue all that has happened, but instead are just going to focus on the events of the past week.

   Free child care for all

It hasn't been enacted yet, but it's still worth celebrating nonetheless.

"All the naysayers -- and they were legion -- who said Zohran Mamdani was never going to be able to get anything done since he had to deal with Kathy Hochul in the governor's office seem to have been proven wrong. This week, Hochul unveiled a plan to not just provide free child care to all pre-kindergarten kids in New York City but the whole state. Hochul and Mamdani already are defying the naysayers by working together to solve this aspect of the affordability crisis. This bodes well for Democrats, it bodes well for Hochul and Mamdani, and it certainly bodes well for all New York parents. This is what Democrats can make happen if they work together, folks."

   Who are you going to believe?

This is turning into a regular talking point, since it applies to so many different situations.

"When you remember the events of January 6th... when you see a woman getting shot in Minneapolis by federal agents... we all now have to ask ourselves a very important question: Who do you believe? The president of the United States, or your own lyin' eyes? Personally, I know which one shows the truth and which one lies like a rug, and I hope everyone else comes to the same conclusion."

   Put the shoe on the other foot

For all those on the right who insist that everything is normal and legal, a quick question to check exactly what they mean.

"Republicans were just fine with Donald Trump sending in the American military to arrest and remove the leader of Venezuela, based on an indictment handed down by an American grand jury. The Republicans tell us that this is legal and appropriate. So I have a question for them: What would you say if the Venezuelan justice system indicted Donald Trump for committing acts of piracy on the high seas and for abducting their country's leader by use of force? And then what would you say if the Venezuelan military launched a commando raid to capture Trump and haul him back to Caracas to stand trial on these charges? Would you be OK with all of that? Would you defend it as righteous and legal? I'm betting you wouldn't. Looks a little different when the shoe is on the other foot, doesn't it?"

   Senate needs to vote to protect Greenland

This is now pretty obviously necessary.

"The U.S. Senate voted this week to deny Donald Trump the power to use the American military again in Venezuela. But they shouldn't stop there -- their next bill should also make it illegal for Trump to attack in any way the island of Greenland. Up until now, some Republicans have scoffed at the need for doing so, but after listening to Trump's continuing obsession with owning Greenland -- no matter what the people who live there or in Denmark think about it -- it is now obviously necessary to rein him in. Launching an invasion of Greenland wouldn't just be disgraceful imperialism on our part, it would also mean the end of U.S. involvement with NATO. The stakes are high. And Trump thinks he can do anything he wants. The Senate needs to tell him that he can't, before any Greenland invasion actually takes place."

   "King" isn't good enough for Trump

No kings? No emperors, either.

"Donald Trump apparently doesn't want to just be king, instead he'd really prefer to be called an emperor. He wants to go back more than a century, to the time of unchecked imperialism. He wants to grab any country he feels like, take their resources whether they like it or not, and profit off the entire venture. He is fully on board with the concept of 'might makes right,' and he's not shy about admitting it. Donald Trump doesn't just want to be a king, he wants to be an emperor -- and it's up to the rest of us to tell him we don't want to return to the 19th century world of strong countries just taking whatever they want from weaker ones."

   This is the country we all live in, now

It's sad to say it, but it also must be said.

"We all now live in a country where masked federal officers who are outfitted for warfare can roam the streets of American cities and freely shoot American citizens without justification and know they'll never face any consequences for doing so, no matter what. This is now America, folks. This is the country we all live in, now."

   House Republicans have their priorities straight!

This was just laughable.

"The Washington Post ran an article this week -- which was a shocking and busy week in politics -- with the headline: 'House GOP Prioritizes Trump's Changes To Showerheads.' You just can't make this stuff up, folks. Here's the first sentence of the article: 'House Republicans are hoping to soon deliver a win for President Donald Trump's agenda -- or at least his hair -- by voting to codify his long-desired showerhead changes into law, one of their top priorities of the new session.' Yep, you read that right -- one of the Republicans' top priorities is changing federal rules for showerheads. Voters should remember this come November, as they stand in the voting booth. Voters should think to themselves, 'What should have been the top legislative priority this year -- showerheads, or perhaps something else?' Because their answer might be a wee bit different than how the Republicans in Congress have prioritized things."

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

Cross-posted at: Democratic Underground