buyer beware: just got a tariff bill from fedex for some random online order I made five months ago

The speed with which public opinion turned against sports betting still amazes me

The motion is for deportation to a third country

All I can say is I hope somewhere, Thomas Boswell is writing up some incredible column about all this.

Immigration sweep brings overcrowded rooms and overflowing toilets. Lawyers say they can’t visit their clients. The Department of Homeland Security says “all detainees receive full due process.”

Going for a walk in 10 degrees with a can of Coke Zero. Means the coke gets colder as you go. This is living

A Minnesota woman observing ICE agents in her car was cornered on one-way streets. An agent approached, called her by name—citing facial recognition. Days later, her Global Entry and TSA privileges were revoked, with no explanation.

Apologies to the first amendment but I changed settings to only allow followers to reply, bc one skeet takes off and you’re inundated with dum dums

This judge says: - refugees must be released in the next 5 days - Returned to Minnesota. Not released onto the streets of Texas, which is what's been happening. - ICE must alert the refugees' lawyers so they aren't released into dangerous cold without someone to meet them

REAKING: A federal judge in Minnesota has barred the Trump administration from arresting / detaining the state's 5,600 refugees while they await lawful permanent resident status. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

My colleague pointed out that someone should investigate all the released detainees' possessions that ICE does not return to them - in this story, for example, a refugee who was detained and released did not receive her gold necklace back @haleaziz.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2026/01/26/u...

The removal of Bovino doesn't mean anything has necessarily changed (yet) in the Twin Cities. I confirmed yesterday that lawfully present refugees are still getting arrested, some sent to Texas.

celebs are in fact the last people I want to hear from right now

Retired judge, now a World Relief staffer

A Christian I just talked to in Twin Cities said a baby of an immigrant family they're helping had seizures and went to hospital - she got a call at 5am and went to take the baby back home after treatment. This is what people in the Twin Cities are doing every day

This is true. Even if a non-white person in Twin Cities is a US citizen, they might still be detained and treated badly. I ate at a Colombian restaurant in Minneapolis one morning and the front door had been smashed. Owners didn't know if it was related to current events, but all so unnerving

I was at a gathering of Hispanic pastors this morning who were supposed to meet with Chief O’Hara to talk about security (from ICE) in their churches. O’Hara called the organizer that he had to go handle this shooting. Pastors grabbed hands together and started praying and crying.

Source:

Pray for the Twin Cities

Breaking NYT: The FBI agent who sought to investigate the federal immigration officer who fatally shot Renee Good has resigned from the bureau, according to two people familiar with the matter, after leadership pressured her to discontinue a civil rights inquiry into the officer.

Outside the Whipple building where immigrants are being detained

Star Tribune is doing such an amazing job

It’s minus 20 here in the twin cities. That’s 50 degrees colder than freezing. Churches here are still packing boxes and doing food distribution to immigrants stuck in their homes - so that’s the morning inspo. Get after it

update now that people have been arrested - If the MN church protestors arrested are charged under FACE Act with the civil rights conspiracy, they will face long prison sentences. 10+ years. The protestors convicted under Biden were sentenced to multiple years (2-5 years of the cases I know)

update from the ground in Minnesota: the US Pond Hockey Championships have been postponed due to extreme cold

Ben Luhmann, who filmed this, is one of the two high schoolers from a conservative Christian family I rode along with in Chicago when they were searching for ICE agents there. When I asked him how his faith informed his efforts to document ICE/DHS, he told me this. religionnews.com/2025/11/25/h...

People being calm, professional, at ease under immense pressure is one of the most amazing things to behold

"I was praying. I was like, God, please help me, I didn't do anything wrong”

The windchill was below-zero when ChongLy Scott Thao, 57 — wearing only boxers and Crocs, with a blanket draped over his shoulders — was handcuffed and ushered outside by federal agents agents who broke open his door.

America’s “moral role in confronting evil around the world” is in question for the first time in decades, three top American cardinals say in a strongly worded statement today. New from me, with comment from all three: www.nytimes.com/2026/01/19/u...

The FACE Act is interesting because it protects access to - abortion clinics - places of worship Biden admin used FACE to go after (sometimes peaceful, sometimes violent) protestors at abortion clinics. Some of Trump's first pardons were the protestors convicted under FACE under Biden.

Also revealing that they seem to think constitutional rights protect government agents from the people and not vice versa, which is the entire reason they exist.

They have quite an operation going. www.mprnews.org/episode/2026...

Do any New Yorkers here know about a co-ed boarding house called Trinity House that existed in Manhattan in the 1940s? A reader who responded to my piece on boarding houses told me that her parents met over a communal breakfast there.

The Star Tribune had an insane graphic about the presence of immigration enforcement in Minneapolis. There are more immigration officers in the metro right now than local police officers.

Wow. "World Relief is mobilizing immediately to protect the 4,400 refugee families under our care and preserve stability"

In a statement, head of World Relief Myal Greene calls the Minneapolis situation a "five alarm fire," saying refugees they resettled were detained over the weekend.

The amount of sudoku I’m doing to try to stay grounded is more than I anticipated on Jan 1 2026

One of the most useful pieces I’ve read on this. “Before last January, federal immigration officials didn’t regularly conduct traffic stops, and didn’t receive extensive training in the practice.”

Indonesia today became the first country to block Grok. "The government views non-consensual deepfake practices as a serious violation of human rights, dignity, and the security of citizens in the digital space." https://www.cbsnews.com/news/indonesia-suspends-grok-ai-over-sexualized-images/

The 92 year old judge who presided over Bill Hwang’s conviction is overseeing the Maduro case www.wsj.com/us-news/law/...

Trump admin re-reviewing existing refugees who have legal status in Minnesota www.nytimes.com/2026/01/09/u...

When the chess great Kasparov weighs in. "According to the Russian government, I am a terrorist. This isn’t Russia. Not yet. …if we are in Russia then you are out of options." www.thenextmove.org/p/minneapoli...

never clicked so fast

Gift link to this detailed, harrowing breakdown of the Minneapolis shooting, including a synchronous analysis demonstrating that a video circulated as evidence that the ICE officer was "run over" does not in fact show that: www.nytimes.com/video/us/100...

It's secondary to the actual stories, but I'm thinking about the Minneapolis local news media. What a heavy year. The assassinations of the state lawmakers, Annunciation shooting, and now this.

Look, dogs are great, I love them. But they cannot tell the sublime jokes my 4 year old nephew tells www.thetimes.com/article/c3cd...

Kate was the greatest editor - shattered that CT lost her. I would swim across a gross lake with a snapping turtle in it if she asked. Praxis doesn't even know what an acquisition they made!

Entire multi-billion-dollar companies have done less to help people than this one tiny thing this one guy did forty years ago.