US Politics Mega-thread - Page 5436

On January 14 2026 20:10 Sadist wrote:
They need to stop resigning. A lackey will take their place and just do the governments bidding and we will be further down the slide towards authortarianism.

On January 14 2026 20:33 Gorsameth wrote:
The thing is they are not resisting by staying, They can't investigate them regardless of orders because the government would not cooperate.

On January 14 2026 18:35 Manit0u wrote:


Several DOJ members (6 prosecutors to be exact) have quit in protest because apparently the investigation and prosecution of Rene Good shooting is being blocked by the White House.

On January 14 2026 20:10 Sadist wrote:



They need to stop resigning. A lackey will take their place and just do the governments bidding and we will be further down the slide towards authortarianism.

SCHMITZ: So did any of the prosecutors say why they're leaving at this point in their careers?

SEPIC: Through a spokesperson, Thompson declined to comment today. But the source I mentioned tells me there are several reasons for the mass resignations. As we mentioned, top Justice Department officials have been pushing the Minnesota U.S. Attorney's Office to investigate Becca Good. She is the widow of Renee Macklin Good, the woman killed by ICE agent Jonathan Ross last week. The investigation allegedly centers around any possible ties to activist groups she may have. That, of course, is protected First Amendment activity. The Trump administration maintains that the agent was acting in self-defense when he shot and killed Macklin Good, but video evidence contradicts claims that she presented a threat.

On January 14 2026 23:09 Doublemint wrote:
usual is quite the tell here.

also, the "usual investigation" and those DOJ resignations are unrelated then?

in my humble estimation those events warrant vigorous legal scrutiny, up to the highest state and even federal court if need be.

On February 21 2025 06:49 KwarK wrote:
Or there's this guy.
https://www.texasobserver.org/ice-prosecutor-dallas-white-supremacist-x-account/



Here's what he posts on twitter.





The idea that nobody really identifies as racist, everyone has biases but everyone in their own mind believes themselves to be a reasonable and open minded person, is a liberal delusion that they've told themselves to excuse inaction when faced with the open return of Nazism. These people know exactly what they are, and they're in government.

On January 14 2026 17:08 Liquid`Drone wrote:
If someone thinks the shooting Renee Good was legitimate self defense, they're either dishonest, or an idiot. There's no debate to be had about this.

If someone thinks that the shooting of Renee Good was justified because it gives a clear message to people that obstructing ICE in their work might result in getting you killed and the work ICE is doing is dirty but important and people must be discouraged from any sort of disruptive protesting, that's not necessarily dishonest, nor stupid. I'd argue this point of view is in conflict with certain rights we've come to associate with liberal western democracies, but oh well, not expecting MAGA to be in favor of those rights anyway.

WASHINGTON — Democrats are wrestling with whether to use a key Jan. 30 deadline to demand constraints on President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed an American woman in Minneapolis.

Progressives in the House and Senate are calling on their party to hold firm in opposition to a funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security unless it comes with conditions — such as requiring agents to wear identification, limiting Customs and Border Protection agents to the border and requiring judicial warrants to arrest suspects in immigration cases.

They say Trump is using autocratic tactics by deploying masked agents in cities to intimidate Americans who don’t support him.

On January 15 2026 00:38 GreenHorizons wrote:
Democrats are trying to figure out what they can/should do


www.nbcnews.com



Why or why not?

On January 14 2026 20:28 KwarK wrote:

Might as well argue concentration camp guards shouldn’t resign because they’ll just be replaced by men with better marksmanship. At a certain point all you can do is refuse to participate.

On January 14 2026 17:08 Liquid`Drone wrote:
If someone thinks the shooting Renee Good was legitimate self defense, they're either dishonest, or an idiot. There's no debate to be had about this.

The commentary on the death of Renee Good, shot by an ICE agent, is very frustrating for at least some of us who’ve had to litigate assault on police and use of force.

Some of this is understandable. Ms. Good’s death is tragic. And in the aftermath of these kinds of events, we wouldn’t be human if we didn’t think it’s a sinful waste that could have been avoided if people — very much including Good herself — had made better choices. It’s also just a fact that President Trump and immigration enforcement are lightning rods in this country. They affect the conclusions — often opposite conclusions — that people draw upon observing the exact same events.

None of this changes the law.

For political purposes — especially for Minnesota Democrats enmeshed in a fraud scandal and progressive activists for whom their “truth” is always more important that the truth — it may be relevant that Good was a nice person, a mother of three young children, passionate, well-intentioned, pro-immigrant, a poet, and possessed of the full menu of bien-pensant views. And in their framing of events, it may be central that she was alone and unarmed.

For legal purposes, however, none of that matters.

Nor, by the way, does it matter that the Department of Homeland Security is run by an imbecile and that a majority of people in Minneapolis, who elected the progressive Democrats who’ve installed sanctuary policies, may not want ICE agents in their city. (I assume most people in Minneapolis want aliens who are hardened criminals and gang bangers dealt with but oppose Trump’s policy of pursuing all illegal aliens.) There are policy disputes to argue about around the shooting, but they are not germane to the legal analysis of the shooting.

Legally, what matters is whether the ICE agent who shot Good was in reasonable fear of death or serious injury in the moment that he shot. His state of mind must be assessed in light of all the surrounding circumstances as he perceived them — which excludes things about Good (positive or negative) that he did not know. Moreover, the evaluation is what a reasonable law enforcement officer would have perceived — that’s different from a reasonable person because law enforcement officers deal with life-and-death situations and, consequently, observe things that might escape other people’s attention.

On that score, as some commentators have noted, it is worth reading Justice Kavanaugh’s concurrence last term in Barnes v. Felix (2025). Writing for the unanimous Court, Justice Kagan had reaffirmed the principle that the central issue is reasonableness under the totality of the circumstances. But Justice Kavanaugh’s separate opinion — joined in by Justices Thomas, Alito, and Barrett — is a clinic in why automobile stops are inherently dangerous, and why a driver’s attempt to flee from police, by itself, presents a severe risk to public safety.

In the vehicle situation, the opportunities to “de-escalate” that may arise in confrontations that occur on foot are not available. Cars are big, unwieldy, and capable of quick acceleration. Contrary to what you’re hearing from some quarters, in the car stop situation, the law does not require an officer to step a particular way, especially if the car is in motion. Moreover, it doesn’t matter if the car is going 10 mph, 5 mph, or 1 mph — if the motor is running, it could be going much faster in the blink of an eye.

This is why it’s irrational for commentators to suggest that, even if the first shot (through the windshield) may have been justified, the agent needn’t have shot three times (the idea being that Good had already turned the car away from the agent by the time of shots two and three). In response to such claims, others have rightly countered with Justice Alito’s observation, writing for the Court in Plumhoff v. Ricard (2014):

We now consider respondent’s contention that, even if the use of deadly force was permissible, petitioners acted unreasonably in firing a total of 15 shots. We reject that argument. It stands to reason that, if police officers are justified in firing at a suspect in order to end a severe threat to public safety, the officers need not stop shooting until the threat has ended. As petitioners noted below, “if lethal force is justified, officers are taught to keep shooting until the threat is over.”

That brings me back, finally, to lethal force. As I pointed out earlier this week, it’s not enough to say that, in attempting to evade the agents, Good committed the federal crime of assault on a federal officer, under Section 111 of the federal penal code. That crime has gradations of seriousness, which carry a range of penalties from one to 20 years. Good assaulted the agent with a car, a lethal weapon under the circumstances. That is the most serious of the Section 111 crimes because it could result in death or serious bodily injury.

When a federal officer is faced with the imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury, he may use lethal force to protect himself and others in the community, and he may persist in using lethal force until the threat has been quelled. End of story — at least, the legal story.

That doesn’t mean we should stop debating whether immigration enforcement policy has become too extreme or whether ICE’s tactics are too draconian — or, for that matter, debating the effects of the Biden policy of open borders and nonenforcement on national security, domestic law and order, schools, social services, and so on. But no matter where you come out on all of that — and regardless of whether you believe Renee Good’s death resulted from either her poor decision-making in gratuitously courting danger, or Trump’s excessive zeal in ramping up immigration enforcement — the legal case comes down to whether the agent reasonably perceived a potentially lethal threat.

From what we have seen so far, he did.