We're going to begin today with a prediction that is completely unrelated to what happened last week. Because next Friday the 2026 Winter Olympics will begin. Our prediction: the U.S.A. is going to get booed. Loudly. It'll probably be most noticeable during the opening ceremonies, but will likely sporadically pop up throughout the games. Perhaps this is why Donald Trump decided to skip the whole thing and send JD Vance in his place? Maybe Vance -- who is not as well-known worldwide -- won't get booed as loudly as the catcalls would have been if Trump had been there?

This all seems like a safe bet, since Trump has spent the past year being as belligerent and offensive as possible to pretty much every other nation on Earth (with the possible exception of Russia and a few oil emirates). Trump has insulted country after country, belittled and denigrated their leaders, thrown America's weight around as the world's biggest bully (and a psychotic one, at that), and threatened the post-World-War-II world order in almost too many ways to count. Trump has used the rest of the world -- Europe in particular -- as his punching bag all year long. So it shouldn't be any surprise if people from the entire world join together in a chorus of boos to let Trump and America know exactly how low we have sunk in the world's opinion.

And we were going to say all of that even before it was announced that Trump is sending ICE agents to Milan, Italy "for security purposes." Anti-ICE protests are already planned, as of this writing. Which isn't too surprising, seeing as how anti-ICE protests are now taking place on a daily basis here at home.

Which brings us to the big news of the week, of course. Donald Trump was finally forced to back down -- in style, at least, although the jury's still out on whether he's actually going to back down on substance or not.

Trump has always expressed praise for cops acting like jackbooted thugs, of course. He's said so many times, in many ways, ever since he entered politics (and long before, for that matter). He wants to see cops breaking heads and shooting protesters -- as long as those protesters aren't on his side. He appointed people who think just like him to key positions in his cabinet and in his White House, and has supported sending either federal agents dressed and equipped for a battlefield or actual military troops to any city he deems to be insubordinate in any way. He gleefully demonized any Americans who dared to protest any of his actions, and praised to the skies the brutality shown by his stormtroopers.

So it wasn't all that surprising that he followed the same playbook after immigration cops shot and killed yet another protester in Minneapolis who was doing absolutely nothing to deserve such summary execution. From Trump on down, when the news broke last weekend, the dead man was called a domestic terrorist and an assassin and a violent radical and anything else they could think up to demonize him and blame him for his own death at the hands of out-of-control federal agents.

Then the videos appeared of what had actually happened. And all the videos plainly showed that Trump and his henchmen were lying. Blatantly and shamelessly lying. Nothing matched their portrayal of events at all. Instead of a wild-eyed wannabe assassin approaching federal officers while waving a gun around and threatening to kill them all, we saw a man who intervened when a federal thug violently shoved a woman into a snowbank and then pepper-sprayed her in the face -- for no valid reason. She was not interfering with the officer's duties, she was not attacking him, she was not resisting arrest, she was just standing there exercising her constitutional right to free speech. When she was on the ground helpless and being sprayed with caustic chemicals in the face, another man positioned himself between her and the jackbooted thug attacking her. So the thug attacked him instead, spraying him in the face as well -- even though he was also not attacking the cop or interfering with him in any way. He was just trying to prevent the woman from a vicious and unfounded attack.

So the cops piled on top of him and then shot him 10 times, even though he did nothing threatening and did not pull out or even attempt to reach for the gun he had in his waistband. ICE and the Border Patrol are now judge, jury, and executioner, as everyone in America could plainly see for themselves.

In response, even after the videos had been seen by most Americans, Trump and his minions doubled down on their lies. They refused to admit what everyone's eyes could plainly see. The attorney general of Minnesota accused Trump and Kristi Noem and all the rest of them of spouting "flat-out insane" lies. This is part of a pattern, and it was about time Trump and the rest of them were called to the carpet over such lying. In every single one of the 16 shootings from ICE or the Border Patrol over the course of the last few months, Trump and his toadies have immediately leapt to sing from the same songbook of lies: they're all "domestic terrorists" who "attacked the officers" and they had to shoot "in fear for their lives." These stories often fall apart on examination, since they are not based in reality at all. The Trump administration has even been castigated by judges for lying in court and under oath, and federal judges are now just assuming that everything the government says in any of these cases is a blatant lie unless proven otherwise by solid factual evidence.

For days, Trump et al kept insisting that their lies were true. Even after the videos so clearly debunked them. And then the shift happened. Trump finally realized that the public wasn't buying the official lies, and that people were turning against him and his fellow Republicans in a big way. So Trump did something he rarely ever does -- he decided it was time to change course and do a little damage control.

Part of the reason for this shift was that cracks were appearing among Republicans. Washington GOP politicians were publicly contradicting Trump and stating the truth (some extremely timidly, some less so) and a Republican who had been running for governor in Minnesota abruptly announced he was ending his campaign because he just couldn't continue calling himself a Republican, saying: "I cannot support the... stated retribution on the citizens of our state, nor can I count myself a member of a party that would do so. United States citizens are carrying papers to prove their citizenship. That's wrong."

Even the Second Amendment enthusiasts were angry, after Trump (and others) essentially said that carrying a weapon to a protest was reason enough for a federal agent to execute you on the spot. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pointed out the rank hypocrisy of such a stance, saying: "How rich is it that she is saying showing up to the scene of a protest with a legally owned weapon should be grounds for a person's death, execution at the hands of the state, by the same party and the same administration that praises Kyle Rittenhouse?" Good point.

Federal judges are not happy with the Trump administration either. One threatened to hold the head of ICE in contempt of court if he didn't obey a summons to appear personally. "The court's patience is at an end," the judge wrote. "The Court acknowledges that ordering the head of a federal agency to personally appear is an extraordinary step, but the extent of ICE's violation of court orders is likewise extraordinary, and lesser measures have been tried and failed."

ICE then obeyed the court's underlying order (to release one of their prisoners) and the judge backed off on the demand, but was equally scathing in his order, noting that ICE had ignored 96 judicial orders in over 70 cases since the crackdown in Minnesota began, noting: "This list should give pause to anyone -- no matter his or her political beliefs -- who cares about the rule of law. ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence."

Federal prosecutors in Minnesota also reportedly considered resigning en masse to protest the investigation after the most recent shooting.

Other conservative voices expressed their disgust as well:

The National Review on Monday deemed Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem the single-most "incompetent" official under President Donald Trump, citing her remarks on Saturday's fatal shooting and begging for her to be fired -- ideally "into the sun."

While the conservative magazine has broken with Trump over various issues before, staff writer Jeffrey Blehar argues that Noem has become his biggest problem and has exacerbated sky-high tensions after U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents fatally shot Alex Pretti.

"I will say this: Any hope of Trump's presidency clawing its way out of the hole it has dug for itself begins with firing Kristi Noem, current secretary of homeland security and the administration's most prominent 'ridealong disaster' during its first year," wrote Blehar.

He continued, "Preferably out of a rocket, and into the sun."

After even conservative media began to turn on him by channeling their inner Pink Floyd ("Set the controls for the heart of the sun"), Donald Trump finally realized that the tide had turned and there was simply no way to bluster his way through this mess. Instead, he decided to blame another scapegoat (Noem, as of this writing, is still not on a rocket, headed sunward). So he demoted the "commander-at-large" of the Border Patrol, a guy named Gregory Bovino, and instead send in Tom Homan to take charge in Minneapolis.

Trump even called up Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and made nice with them. This is in direct contrast to the way Trump had been treating these two up to this point -- accusing them of inciting all the violence and siccing his Justice Department on them -- so it was a noticeable shift in tone. Since Homan arrived, Noem has disappeared from the scene and ICE sent out a new memo to all their officers telling them: "DO NOT COMMUNICATE OR ENGAGE WITH AGITATORS. It serves no purpose other than inflaming the situation." This also told the ICE goons to back off and stop arresting people with no criminal history. So maybe things are changing for the better. Time will tell.

The Justice Department, reversing an earlier decision not to, has now reportedly opened a civil rights investigation into the killing of Pretti. So maybe it's not just ICE and the Border Patrol who have been told to change how they've been operating. We'll see.

Meanwhile, the protests continue. Last Friday Minneapolis held an unofficial "general strike" where most businesses shuttered their doors in protest of the federal jackbooted thugs in their streets. Today, one week later, there is a massive protest march happening after a protest concert was held (with a very special guest performing). And a third "No Kings" rally has been announced, which will have Minneapolis as the center of attention, for the end of March (when the weather warms up a bit).

In Washington, Democrats are using the outrage all of this has sparked to actually get something productive done. Because of the coincidence of the government's funding running out at midnight tonight, Democrats are using the leverage of public opinion to absolutely demand changes to ICE and other Homeland Security agencies. And they've already got an impressive amount of Republican support for their efforts, which is strange so early in the shutdown process. When a vote on a bill that would have funded everything happened in the Senate, eight Republicans crossed the aisle and voted with the Democrats to kill the bill. That is a stunning amount of bipartisan support, these days.

The government will technically shut down starting at midnight, but it will likely only remain shut down until Monday (or perhaps Tuesday). The Senate will divide up the bill that failed and pass all the parts of it that are not contentious, while holding up Homeland Security's budget for another two weeks. Democrats have made three reasonable demands for reform, which include banning ICE agents from wearing masks and mandating body cameras (we wrote about the Democratic demands yesterday at more length).

For once, the Democratic minority in Congress clearly has the upper hand in the negotiations. Trump's thugs are not popular. Midterm elections are a little over nine months away. Republicans are scared of what the voters are going to do (and not just on this issue). And now that even Trump has realized what an enormous political liability this all has become for him, Democrats will be on offense during the negotiations as to how severely to rein in the Department of Homeland Security. While Republicans will be in a defensive crouch.

All in all, things are looking up for the Democrats, at least over the course of the next two weeks. Which is a good place to end on for today.

Senator Amy Klobuchar has been doing a pretty good job of expressing her state's outrage at what is going on in Minneapolis, and just this week she officially launched her campaign to become Minnesota's next governor. She is now seen as the frontrunner in the Democratic primary race, which at least earns her a Honorable Mention.

We have two musicians who are worth some sort of honor, but can't say for certain if they officially belong to a political party, so we'll just note them in passing here. First, Neil Young offered free access to his entire musical catalog online to everyone in Greenland. Young is now an American citizen, but he was born in Canada and wanted to offer his solidarity to the people of Greenland after Donald Trump's maniacal obsession with owning the island.

That was impressive, but closer to home Bruce Springsteen reacted to the news from the Twin Cities by writing, recording, and releasing a new song: "Streets Of Minneapolis." In it, he expresses his rage quite eloquently (more on this in a bit). He made a personal appearance in the city today and sang his new song at a protest concert being given, much to the audience's delight.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer deserves at least an Honorable Mention as well, for pulling Democrats together behind a list of demands for the government shutdown fight. It's rare that Democrats act so quickly in a moment of crisis, so we had to at least acknowledge this.

But our Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week goes out to a Democrat for a completely different reason. Representative Ilhan Omar was addressing a crowd this week when a crazed Trump supporter walked up to her podium and sprayed her with an unknown substance (which later turned out to be vinegar), just as she was calling for Kristi Noem to resign or be fired. Omar later said she initially thought the guy had spit on her.

Her reaction, however, was astonishing. Despite being roughly half her attacker's size and weight (Omar is not exactly John Fetterman in terms of having what might be called an imposing physical presence), Omar advanced towards her attacker, one hand curling into a fist. If the guy hadn't been tackled by security, she doubtlessly would have thrown a punch at the guy's face (which she later confirmed was her intent, in an interview). Watch the video to see the unequal physical match between the two and ask yourself if you were Omar's size would you have been that brave?

For her fearless response to an unprovoked attack against her, Ilhan Omar is definitely our Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week. "Minneapolis strong" indeed!

[Congratulate Representative Ilhan Omar on her House contact page, to let her know you appreciate her efforts.]

Once again we are delighted to report that no Democrat disappointed us in any major way this week. Democrats are united in response to Trump's immigration overreach and seem like they are going to successfully use the threat of a government shutdown to effect real changes -- without a single dissenting voice. So we're going to put the Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week award back on the shelf for another week.

Volume 826 (1/30/26)

We had planned on offering up a mix of talking points this week, from the outraged (at ICE and all the other Trump thugs), to the snarky ("Is Kristi Noem on thin ICE with Trump?") to the unrelated.

On that last one, Democrats should indeed keep their big issue for the midterm campaigns simmering on the back burner, since no matter what happens with ICE in the next few weeks the economy is still likely to be the biggest issue of the election. And things just keep getting worse out there in the public's opinion. It was revealed this week that consumer sentiment is now at the lowest point it has been for over a decade -- which includes the entire COVID-19 pandemic. People feel worse about the economy now than they did when the economy came to a grinding halt in 2020, to put it another way -- and this is true for every single metric they use to measure consumer confidence. They're all way down.

Add to this the fact that because Republicans have now successfully blocked the Obamacare subsidies from being extended (which we wrote about earlier in the week), healthcare costs are now Americans' top worry. Here are the new numbers:

Voters say that the issue will alter their election choices, with about three-quarters indicating that health care costs will affect their choices in November, according to the poll released Thursday by KFF, a nonpartisan health policy organization.

While voters often cite the economy as the most important factor in their election choices, the cost of health care has become far more prominent this year, KFF pollster Ashley Kirzinger said.

. . .

According to the KFF poll, most Americans think that the health care affordability problem will get worse: A majority (56 percent) of adults said they expect their family's health care costs to become less affordable in the next year.

About 32 percent of Americans said they were "very worried" about health care bills. By comparison, only 24 percent said they were "very worried" about the affordability of food and groceries; 23 percent considered themselves "very worried" about the rent or mortgage.

Those are two enormously important talking points for Democrats to keep in mind, obviously (since they happen to be on the winning side of both of those arguments).

But this week was a one-subject week, politically-speaking. And rather than try to come up with our own talking points to express the rage in the streets, we decided to just let The Boss do so for us.

So instead of this week's talking points, here are the lyrics to Bruce Springsteen's new song, "Streets Of Minneapolis" instead (which you can follow while listening to the official video release):

Streets Of Minneapolis

Through the winter's ice and cold
Down Nicollet Avenue
A city aflame fought fire and ice
'Neath an occupier's boots
King Trump's private army from the DHS
Guns belted to their coats
Came to Minneapolis to enforce the law
Or so their story goes
Against smoke and rubber bullets
In the dawn's early light
Citizens stood for justice
Their voices ringing through the night
And there were bloody footprints
Where mercy should have stood
And two dead left to die on snow-filled streets
Alex Pretti and Renee Good

Oh our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Singing through the bloody mist
We'll take our stand for this land
And the stranger in our midst
Here in our home they killed and roamed
In the winter of '26
We'll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis

Trump's federal thugs beat up on
His face and his chest
Then we heard the gunshots
And Alex Pretti lay in the snow, dead
Their claim was self defense, sir
Just don't believe your eyes
It's our blood and bones
And these whistles and phones
Against Miller and Noem's dirty lies

Oh our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Crying through the bloody mist
We'll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis

Now they say they're here to uphold the law
But they trample on our rights
If your skin is black or brown my friend
You can be questioned or deported on sight

In our chants of "ICE out now!"
Our city's heart and soul persists
Through broken glass and bloody tears
On the streets of Minneapolis

Oh our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Singing through the bloody mist
Here in our home they killed and roamed
In the winter of '26
We'll take our stand for this land
And the stranger in our midst
We'll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis
We'll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

Cross-posted at: Democratic Underground