'Behind the Wheel'

As she was pulling away from an icy curb in Minneapolis on her last morning on this planet, Renee Nicole Good waved through the ICE vehicle that carried her killer.

She looked into the eyes of the man who in a matter of seconds would take her precious life and with a genial smile that clearly reflected her goodness said, ‘I’m not mad at you’.

When the final words and actions of a poet come from a place of kindness and courtesy, it teaches us all in a most profound way what drives out hate: love.

ICE responded to this young woman’s light with brutality, anger and aggression so the last moment she spent alive was no doubt full of fear. Her killer had already circled her vehicle, (a Honda Pilot, not exactly the ferocious pseudo-military vehicles MAGA and their ilk drive these days to intimidate their fellow commuters) and had seen through its open windows both a gentle looking dog and a glove box overflowing with stuffed animals.

ICE agent Jonathan Ross knew he was in no danger. He killed Renee Nicole Good because he felt emasculated and ridiculed by her partner who had exited the vehicle and was filming the ICE agents.

Renee and her partner are my kind of people. They remind me of my own mother and her ex-partner and their friends; I grew up around brave lesbian women who stand up for what is right, and for each other. You will find no better ally.

The LGBTQIA+ community are as much a part of the fabric of this nation as the immigrants that ICE was in Minnesota to terrorize; their ability to stand up for others in their community is a perfect example of the sort of heartfelt compassion we need more of in this country.

Renee Nicole and her partner were apparently new to Minneapolis and still felt a connection with and a responsibility to help protect their neighbors.

They had just come from dropping her six year-old off at school.

We paid for the bullets that exploded into the young mother’s face - the horror that ensued was 100% tax-payer funded. We must not accept this.

Renee Nicole was described by her partner, in a stunningly eloquent statement calling for compassion and kindness in response to the darkness that took her love, as ‘made out of sunshine’.

I cannot think of a more beautiful and wrenching epitaph.

We must redouble our efforts to make up for the light that was lost from the world on Wednesday morning.

It was an act of obscene brutality and not their first time. A Chicago area father of two, Silverio Villegas González, was murdered by ICE agents in September after a traffic stop in which they opened fire, then lied about the circumstances of the incident and the victim’s criminal history (he had none). (See ‘Noel’s Notes: Bad Company’ for more on that tragic and avoidable incident). He too had just dropped his children off at school. He was thirty-eight years old.

These executions are playing out on American streets by poorly trained, masked federal agents acting on the direct orders of Stephen Miller - who has been given free reign by an unhinged and demented dictator, Donald Trump.

Miller holds weekly calls where he berates and hectors those under his command for not arresting and deporting more ‘illegals’.

This vitriolic, race-based hate and xenophobia then gets transmitted out in the field by Greg Bovino, a self-styled Nazi replete with a custom SS-style trench coat. Bovino was photographed smiling talking to his agents at the murder scene on Wednesday morning. ICE agents are taught that they can enact their barbarism with impunity while the administration’s rhetorical agenda revolves around dehumanizing immigrants (and Democrats and progressives in general).

Trump of course immediately lied and gave cover to the ICE agent involved in the shooting, as did his grifter Secretary of Homeland Security - who has zero experience in law enforcement and is only in it for the massive budget she can spend on personal items, private jets and housing.

As shameless and despicable a cabinet member as we have known, but a crucial link in the administration’s desire to turn their brutality into online content. Kristi Noem appeals to the women of MAGA in the same way Erika Kirk has become a beacon of bleached blonde entitlement to White ‘Christian’ women in red state and rural America.

The ‘Real Housewives’ aura of gaudy glamour softens the blood-soaked brutality of what is actually happening and makes the MAGA adherents feel better about being absolutely awful people. It’s as if Kim Kardashian merged with the KKK.

Standing behind her camouflaged lectern in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, Noem lied with a relish seldom seen in public life before the Trump era. Without as much as a morsel of empathy for the victim, she defended a killer before the facts were known beneath a bucket of makeup and a ten-gallon hat.

The Secretary of Homeland Security looked as silly as her belt buckle but in the end her actions were deadly serious, as they perhaps planted us firmly in the new era of American autocracy; absurdism mixed with state sponsored executions.

We certainly don’t need to become any angrier as a nation but it is hard to imagine anything more enraging than what we all witnessed this week.

We need to channel our justifiable outrage into peaceful action.

We must not succumb to their level. We should meet their angry rhetoric with compassion and illumination. We have to lead by example to overcome the darkness that is eclipsing the humanity of the MAGA faithful.

Our challenge lies in changing the hearts and minds of the people that perhaps did not quite realize what they were signing up for - you may say that is a charitable description, but what choice do we have but to give the benefit of the doubt when moving forward?

Like it or not, these are our fellow countrymen and women; we are paying the salaries of most of our oppressors. We do not have to accept this - when I speak of being peaceful and kind, that should not exclude being radical, fiercely pursuing change and standing up for our fellow human beings.

Every choice you make as a consumer has an impact on the global marketplace, and therefore the billionaires and oligarchs benefiting from Trump’s corruption and crackdown.

Choose wisely.

Donald Trump should be spending the fifth anniversary of January 6th in prison for his actions on that day.

When they do the post mortem on democracy that will be the moment that leaves us all in shame and doubt at how we could have failed so epically to hold one man accountable.

Maduro was a ruthless dictator, but I guarantee you - over the course of his lifetime his actions don’t even begin to approach the level of depravity and immorality of Donald Trump’s.

Among the worst things you could say of Maduro was that he allowed his own people to go hungry and children to starve while engaging in self-dealing and corruption.

Trump literally went to SCOTUS on appeal to continue to withhold nutritional assistance from American citizens and is allowing millions of people to face starvation in Africa with his mean-spirited dismantling of USAID via DOGE.

As far as narco traffickers are concerned, Trump has a long history of looking the other way - or forming outright partnerships with drug dealers, including his own helicopter pilot (see ‘Noel’s Notes: Shakedown Street’).

I doubt Maduro’s involvement with narco traffickers eclipsed that of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who recently received a pardon from Trump for moving five hundred tons of cocaine into the United States.

Some of that cocaine logically was consumed at Trump’s casinos and private clubs and aboard the mega yachts of MAGA’s moneyed crowd.

Not to mention the endless grams that have disappeared up Don Jr.’s nose since his relapse during his father’s first term. (When I worked around Trump’s adult offspring they were all in some form of ‘dry’ abstinence, after all having had their own individual bouts with drinking and substance abuse).

Trump’s bellicosity towards Denmark when it comes to the way Greenland has jumped to the front of the headlines reeks of psychological manipulation.

I believe I have a pretty honed instinct for knowing when Trump is trying to work the algorithmic reality show he presides over to steer attention in a particular direction.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out his motivation.

In this case it is to distract from Epstein files and it’s DOJ cover-up, to quickly pull focus away from his military abduction of Maduro, and the fact that what happens to the country now is no longer a concern of Trump’s - beyond getting its oil reserves and bringing its remaining leadership to heel.

POTUS will most likely leave the socialist dictator’s government in place. Delcy Rodriguez (Maduro’s VP) seems to have displayed the necessary pliability to please Trump - and the people will continue to suffer (which is a bonus for DJT who doesn’t feel alive unless he’s causing other people harm and wielding his power to take things from them).

This has been his modus operandi since his casino and real estate development days when he would regularly stiff contractors out of what was rightfully theirs - taking advantage of the situation and his upper hand while punishing the other guy.

There was no talk of freedom and democracy offered up at Trump’s Palm Beach press conference the morning after the Venezuelan invasion and extraction.

By Sunday, the very next morning, Trump had moved on to attacking American governors in Minnesota and California. He was leading the press to focus on what he wanted them to - and not so much on the looming consequences of his actions in South America.

Not known for message discipline, by Sunday night Trump was threatening Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro; fanning the flames of his ‘Donroe Doctrine’ mentality which he and his flunkies see as global strategy.

Their tension was deescalated later in the week by an impromptu phone call initiated by Petro; proving the fluidity and lack of substance behind Trump’s proclamations and threats. POTUS is basically just looking for attention and to be a perpetual bully. His instinct is only for domination; it’s not a thirst for solutions.

Big, dumb, ‘might makes right’ is no way to run a country or live in the world. The alliances Trump is currently shattering we designed to prevent just this sort of bellicosity and brinksmanship.

It’s no accident that Katie Miller tweeted out the ‘SOON’ meme, superimposing an American flag over the boundary map of Greenland in the hours after the Venezuelan invasion.

It was strategically timed; intended to move the story along and shift the point of focus.

It was effective in keeping the Epstein files out of the news cycle; as were Trump’s follow up comments about Greenland. The warmongering ignited a diplomatic firestorm in Europe, which POTUS double downed on Friday afternoon in a room full of American oil executives.

Not to mention Stephen Miller’s channeling of Adolf Eichmann in his ‘Iron Laws of the world’ meltdown on CNN. This was all too coordinated to be a coincidence.

Trump had a bit of a tell to that effect in his impromptu press gaggle aboard AF1 last Sunday night.

When asked about using the military to take Greenland from Denmark he broadcasted his desire to do just that - and then said, ‘let’s talk about Greenland in twenty days’.

Twenty days would be the exact time DOJ said it would release the next tranche of Epstein documents, after both missing the statutory deadline to explain the redactions and claiming to have just ‘found’ over two million documents over the Christmas holiday.

Both actions stem from strategic obfuscation - and a desire to run out the clock in terms of genuine accountability; continuing the dishonesty DOJ has displayed to the American people, not to mention to mention the survivors of Epstein/Trump. It also plays directly into Donald’s tiny hands.

I believe the ‘twenty days’ comment was a slip from a private strategy session in which the administration gamed out their next big stunt to deflect from Trump’s decades of sexual predation and trafficking with Epstein.

The world and its geopolitical affairs are being manipulated by this now global cover-up. This is not say Trump is not serious with his intention to annex Greenland. He is most certainly going to attempt to abscond with it, along with continuing to troll Canada and attempting to take back the Panama Canal, as crazy as it sounds. You must understand he is, in fact, crazy.

Crazier than anything we have known before in an American leader; it is one of the things I have always tried to warn people about over the last decade.

Take any rogues’ gallery of the world’s worst - if we continue to leave him unchecked, Trump will give them a run for their money.

A sleaze bag Stalin and portly Pol Pot poured into a blue Brioni suit with the subtle cut of a boat cover. He looks like something that should be spending the winter in a driveway in Ronkonkoma.

Yet here he is freely creating chaos and hysteria on the world stage.

January 6th, 2021 was Trump defecating on the U.S.A.

January 6th, 2026 was him rubbing the world’s nose in it.

What else can you say after viewing the White House January 6th page and their rewriting of history?

What I have feared most in the Trump era is the moral caliber of the men and women who voted for him in 2024. It was one thing in the first two elections - it was something entirely different in the third. Their endorsement came with a foreboding sense of danger.

Trump’s voters knew what he was capable of and they wanted more - they also wanted in on the act.

What we witnessed this week in the murder of a young mother by an ICE officer was a culmination of MAGA momentum towards an autocratic and fascistic state.

They want to be the enforcers in the army of America First White Nationalists.

After POTUS and right wing online culture spent a week attacking Minnesota’s governor and circulating false conspiracy theories, it should come as no surprise when a soldier in Trump’s thug army gets an even itchier trigger finger.

My fear is this violence on America’s streets is only beginning.

I do not think we have seen the last of the National Guard in our cities. In fact what happened in Minneapolis may be an act of violence with a specific political purpose for Trump and Stephen Miller.

We must be disciplined and not take the bait, again.

I don’t think I’ve heard a person say ‘Happy New Year’ in the past week.

In the past there was always a little residual holiday cheer that filtered into the first couple of weeks of January. Another of the things Trump has taken from us with a constantly awful new cycle is our national routines. The subtle circadian rhythm of the civic soul that not only bonded us to our seasons but to each other as well.

There’s no room from celebration or unity in Trump’s America - unless its the self-aggrandizing fist pumps of the latest MAGA ‘victory’. Which mostly consists of punishing the innocent while the man at the top pilfers our economy and shreds our Constitution.

POTUS is aware that whatever road blocks were in his way have long since been removed by a coterie of billionaires, backed up by a corrupt, conservative judiciary with a seemingly bottomless appetite for destruction.

The RV exploits of Clarence Thomas seem almost quaint now, given the avalanche of corruption flowing from the civic peaks of our republic. But his actions, and those of his wife Ginny Thomas, one of the key organizers of J6 and an staunch ally and enabler of Leonard Leo, put us on this path.

As did the actions of many others in our federal government and judiciary who sought self-interest over the greater good. Merrick Garland recently became a partner at the venerable law firm Arnold Porter, proving that being a placeholder for autocracy has its perks.

There is no more shameful thing a person in a position of public trust can do than turning their backs on ethics and morality to find favor with a strongman.

Especially if that strong man is a 79 year-old illiterate, drug addicted, sexual predator who has the I.Q. and emotional maturity of canned corn.

Looking the other way is no substitute for looking deeply into the true nature of things.

Reality was not pretty this week - in fact it was absolutely horrific - but we must not look away.

Instead we should look to each other and understand the trauma and uncertainty that has befallen our nation is finite.

We shall overcome. Stay strong.

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