St. Peter police chief intervened and got federal agents to release resident, sources say; MPR, January 31, 2026

 Hannah Yang, Matt Sepic and David Schaper , MPR; St. Peter police chief intervened and got federal agents to release resident, sources say

"MPR News has learned that the police chief in the small southern Minnesota city of St. Peter intervened Thursday to prevent federal immigration agents from taking a local resident into detention, although the city of St. Peter denied the intervention in a statement Saturday.

It’s believed to be the first time a local police department in Minnesota intervened in a federal law enforcement action since the surge in immigration enforcement began two months ago.

The resident, a woman, had been observing and recording video of immigration enforcement actions from her car Thursday afternoon when agents took her into custody.

The woman, who did not want to be identified because she fears for her safety, is a U.S. citizen and a resident of St. Peter. She told MPR News in an interview that she was out in the community in her car, tracking the movements of federal agents, and recording them on a dash cam.

She shared that video with MPR News. Agents in three vehicles began chasing her and trying to force her to pull over. Eventually they box her in, three agents get out of the car in front of her, with their guns drawn and they try to force her out of her vehicle...

The woman’s husband eventually arrives and tries to intervene, and he made a separate recording of the interaction on his phone. He tells the agents not to search her car because they don't have a warrant and it would be an illegal search. The agents appear dismissive of his constitutional concerns.

"I'm not getting into the legality of everything," one agent responds tersely."

AG Bondi demands access to Minnesota voter rolls after fatal Border Patrol shooting; Democracy Docket, January 24, 2026

 Jacob Knutson, Democracy Docket; AG Bondi demands access to Minnesota voter rolls after fatal Border Patrol shooting

[Kip Currier: As noted by MS NOW commentators last night, Pam Bondi's letter to Minn. Gov. Tim Walz looks like another example of Trumpian transactionalism: meet our demands for Minnesota voter rolls, end "sanctuary policies", and be willing to collaborate with ICE efforts, and we may then ease up on immigration raids in your state. 

That looks and sounds like a form of state-sanctioned extortion.]

[Excerpt]

"Just hours after federal immigration officers shot and killed a man in Minneapolis, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi seized upon the incident to demand access to Minnesota’s voter rolls, directly tying the Trump administration’s quest for voters’ unredacted personal data to its aggressive immigration raids across the state.

In a letter to Gov. Tim Walz (D) Saturday, Bondi blamed state and local leaders for the unrest ignited by the Trump administration’s expansive immigration enforcement operations. She claimed that Walz could “restore the rule of law” by complying with a list of demands, including giving the Department of Justice (DOJ) the state’s voter registration records.

“Allow the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice to access voter rolls to confirm that Minnesota’s voter registration practices comply with federal law as authorized by the Civil Rights Act of 1960,” Bondi said in the letter, which was first obtained by Fox News.

The letter adds the state’s unwillingness to share voting data to a litany of grievances the Trump administration has leveled against Minnesota, which range from the local Democratic leaders’ rejection of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) actions to a longstanding welfare fraud scandal.

Bondi’s other demands included sharing Minnesota’s data on Medicaid and supplementary food assistance with the federal government, ending “sanctuary policies” and supporting and collaborating with ICE. This would allow the government to investigate fraud and curb “crime and violence” in the state, the attorney general claimed.

In sum, Bondi’s letter represents a major assault on Minnesota’s sovereignty, demanding that it forfeit its ability to make and enforce its own laws and maintain its voter rolls without oversight from the executive branch, which does not have authority over elections."

They are not good at this: Nearly five months into Trump’s new reign of error, his administration’s mistakes are multiplying.; The Washington Post, June 6, 2025

 Dana Milbank , The Washington Post; They are not good at this: Nearly five months into Trump’s new reign of error, his administration’s mistakes are multiplying.

"Nearly five months into this reign of error, the mistakes are multiplying. It becomes more obvious each week that Trump and his aides are just not good at this governing thing...

Trump, at a town hall this spring, was asked what mistakes he had made in his first 100 days. He was silent for a moment, then said, “I’ll tell you, that’s the toughest question I can have because I don’t really believe I’ve made any mistakes.” The audience laughed.

Even by then, the administration had already racked up an impressive catalogue of maladministration. (Mother Jones published an entertaining list of them.)"

Elon Musk’s Power Grab Is Lawless, Dangerous, and—Yes—a Coup; Slate, February 4, 2025

 DAHLIA LITHWICK AND MARK JOSEPH STERN, Slate;  Elon Musk’s Power Grab Is Lawless, Dangerous, and—Yes—a Coup

"The federal government is currently under relentless and unlawful assault by a man no one elected to lead it. With Donald Trump’s blessing and enabling, Elon Musk and his confederates have laid siege to the executive branch in an onslaught whose appalling and far-reaching consequences have barely begun to be reported, much less understood. Musk’s team is tearing through federal agencies at a shocking clip, gaining access to classified material, private personal information, and payment systems that distribute trillions of dollars every year, all in alleged breach of the law. The richest person in the world, who works for no recognizable government entity and answers to nobody, apparently believes he has unilateral authority to withhold duly appropriated funds, violate basic security protocols protecting state secrets, and abolish a global agency in direct contravention of Congress’ explicit command. He is reportedly leading a purge of the federal workforce, persecuting life-saving charities, and pushing outprincipled civil servants who stand in the way of his rampage."

Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook hearing was an utter sham; The Guardian, April 11, 2018

Zephyr Teachout, The Guardian; Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook hearing was an utter sham

"On Tuesday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was in the hot seat. Cameras surrounded him. The energy in the room – and on Twitter – was electric. At last, the reluctant CEO is made to answer some questions!

Except it failed. It was designed to fail. It was a show designed to get Zuckerberg off the hook after only a few hours in Washington DC. It was a show that gave the pretense of a hearing without a real hearing. It was designed to deflect and confuse...

In my view, we need to break up Facebook from Instagram and the other potential competitors that Facebook bought up. We need to – at a minimum – move towards opt-in, we need to hold Facebook responsible for enabling discrimination, and we need to require interoperability.

But that’s not enough. There is so much we don’t know about Facebook. We know we have a corporate monopoly that has repeated serious violations that are threatening our democracy. We don’t know how their algorithm treats news organizations or content producers, how Facebook uses its own information about Facebook users or how tracking across platforms works, to just give a few examples.

Now that the initial show trial is done, we need the real deal, one where no senator gets cut off after a few minutes. The real hearing would allow for unlimited questions from each of our senators, who represent millions of people. If it takes two months of sitting in Washington DC, let it take two months. This is our democracy."

Facebook’s boy billionaire leaves the tough stuff to the grown-ups; The Washington Post, April 10, 2018

Dana Milbank, The Washington Post; Facebook’s boy billionaire leaves the tough stuff to the grown-ups

"Where do the 87 million Facebook users who had their data scraped for Cambridge Analytica come from?

“We can follow up with your office.”

Does Facebook collect user data through cross-device tracking?

“I want to have my team follow up with you on that.”

Is Facebook a neutral forum or does it engage in First Amendment-protected speech?

“I would need to follow up with you on that.”

Zuckerberg was practically crying out for adult supervision.

Zuckerberg, of course, is no dummy. He was coached for the hearing by some of the best Washington hands money can buy. His professed ignorance, therefore, was most likely a calculation that he could avoid committing to much — and it wouldn’t come back to bite him.

He was probably right. Senators seemed as if they were less interested in regulating him than in gawking at him."

‘You should resign': Elizabeth Warren excoriates Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf; Washington Post, 9/20/16

Jena McGregor, Washington Post; ‘You should resign': Elizabeth Warren excoriates Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf:

"In at least a couple of instances, she used the bank's own words against him. She began by reading from the bank's "vision and values statement," which says "we believe in values lived, not phrases memorized," and "if you want to find out how strong a company's ethics are, don't listen to what its people say. Watch what they do."

So, she said, "let's do that," noting Stumpf had repeatedly said "I'm accountable." Then she drilled into questions where he was unable to affirmatively answer that he had resigned, handed back money he'd earned or fired any senior executives."