Monthly Archives: January 2026

You Put The Load Right On Me

Umraniye The second American Civil War won’t start with secession. It will start with a president deploying the military against Americans protesting his own government’s actions.

We are watching that possibility unfold in Minneapolis.

On January 8th, an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good. The administration labeled her a “domestic terrorist” who “weaponized her vehicle.” Video contradicts this, appearing to show Good fleeing when the agent opened fire. Six federal prosecutors resigned rather than comply with White House pressure to investigate Good instead of the shooting.

People protested. As Americans do when they believe their government has acted wrongly.

Now President Trump threatens to invoke the Insurrection Act if Minnesota officials “don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E.” His Deputy Attorney General went further, posting that Governor Walz and Mayor Frey are responsible for “terrorism” and promising to stop them “by whatever means necessary. This is not a threat. It’s a promise.”

The Deputy Attorney General of the United States is threatening elected state officials because people are protesting a federal killing in their city.

Both the governor and mayor have called for peace. Both have urged calm. Both have condemned violence. And for this, the administration accuses them of inciting “insurrection.”

The Insurrection Act has been invoked once in the past half-century—during the 1992 LA riots, at California’s request. Every modern use has come either at a governor’s request or to expand civil rights protections. Trump would invert two centuries of precedent, sending the military against a governor’s wishes not to restore order, but to suppress protests against federal conduct.

This is not law enforcement. This is a government threatening to make war on its own citizens for objecting to being killed by federal agents.

Consider the sequence. A federal agent kills a civilian. The federal government labels the victim a terrorist. Federal prosecutors resign rather than participate in what they view as a cover-up. The federal government deploys thousands more agents. People protest. The federal government threatens to deploy the military. State officials call for peace. The federal government threatens the state officials.

At every turn, the response to questioning federal action is more federal force.

There is a word for governments that respond to dissent by threatening military deployment. That word is not “democracy.”

Trump claims Minnesota politicians must “obey the law.” But whose law? The law that allows Americans to protest? The law that requires investigations when government agents kill civilians? The law that protects states from federal military occupation without cause? Or simply whatever Trump declares law to be?

When the Deputy Attorney General promises action “by whatever means necessary,” he is not describing the rule of law. He is describing its opposite—the rule of will, where power justifies itself by being power, where the government’s actions stand beyond question because the government has guns.

This is how republics die. Not in a single coup, but in the steady accumulation of moments when the government declares that questioning it is insurrection, when protest becomes terrorism, when asking for accountability becomes grounds for military intervention.

Renee Nicole Good had whistles, her wife said. They had guns.

Now Trump has threatened to send the Army.

If he deploys military forces against Americans protesting a federal killing, against a governor and mayor calling for peace, he will cross a line no American president has crossed in modern history. He will declare that the federal government’s actions stand beyond protest, beyond question, beyond the reach of democracy itself.

The question is simple: Do we still live in a country where citizens can protest when their government kills them? Or do we live in a country where such protest justifies military occupation?

Minneapolis forces us to answer. And the answer we give will determine whether we remain a republic or become something else—something with elections and institutions, but without the one thing that makes democracy possible: the right to tell the government it is wrong.

Trump calls the ICE agents “patriots.” Perhaps he’s forgotten that the original patriots fired on federal forces too.

They called it revolution.

The Lean News Diet 2.0


My father was a career newspaperman and would turn over in his grave at what I am about to say. But he was cremated, has no tombstone and never believed in the afterlife, so fuck it.

I’m cutting the last 5% of news from my brain diet.

Three years ago, I announced I was going on a Lean News Diet. Cut 95% of my daily news intake. No CNN, no MSNBC, no Fox. No evening news, no late night comedians. Just headlines and the theory of natural infection — that important news filters to people naturally, like gossip about a shooting on your block or smoke from a wildfire.

I was adorably naive.

The problem wasn’t that I cut too much news. It’s that I didn’t cut enough.

Back in 2021, I thought Trump’s ouster and covid’s vaccine would change the tenor of coverage. When they didn’t, I blamed the news industry’s obsession with America’s Bottom Third — the QAnoners, science deniers, election fraud hucksters who became the day’s narrative.

Meet the news boss. Same as the old boss.

But here’s what I didn’t anticipate: The Bottom Third would become the boss. Literally. They’re not just the story anymore. They’re writing it. They’re in the Cabinet. They’re naming destroyers after themselves.

And the news — even just the 5% I allowed myself, even just the headlines — has become a hospice vigil for American democracy. Every morning, I check to see if the patient is still breathing. Every evening, I’m assured the patient is definitely dying. Rinse, repeat, forever.

No. I’m done. 99% wasn’t enough. I’m going full Mennonite on news.

The gamble is steeper now, I’ll admit. In 2021, I figured important news would find me. And it did, mostly. Someone always told me about the Dobbs decision. About the midterms. About the indictments that went nowhere.

But here’s what also found me: anxiety I didn’t need about problems I couldn’t solve. Rage about people I’ll never meet. A daily reminder that 40% of my countrymen would watch democracy burn if it owned the libs.

I don’t need that rental agreement anymore. I’m breaking the lease on worry.

And yes, I know what you’re thinking. “Iisn’t staying informed a civic duty? Isn’t ignorance dangerous?”

Maybe. I used to believe so.

But maybe now I’d counter with this: What exactly has my informed citizenship accomplished? I voted. I donated. I argued with relatives at Thanksgiving. And where did it get me? Same place as everyone else — watching the same car crash in slow motion, just with better commentary.

The news isn’t informing me anymore. It’s just making me a better-educated passenger on the Titanic.

So here we go again:

Introducing the Lean News Diet 2.0! Now with 99% less cortisol!

The Lean News Diet 2.0 couldn’t be easier! Just turn off your TV, close your browser tabs, and — Snap! — you’re done! IT’S THAT EASY!

But wait, there’s more! Order the Lean News Diet 2.0 now, and we’ll throw in complete ignorance of what fresh hell is trending on Twitter! That’s right — you won’t even know what you’re missing!

Let’s see the Lean News Diet 2.0 in action. These are actual headlines from this week, not actors, pulled before I closed the tab forever:

“Trump announces tariffs on…” — doesn’t matter, they’ll change by Thursday.

“Scientists warn climate…” — yeah, they’ve been warning for 40 years. Wake me when coastal property values reflect it.

“Supreme Court to hear case on…” — let me guess, something that will make me furious and powerless.

THE LEAN NEWS DIET 2.0! You wouldn’t drink poison. Stop mainlining it through your prefrontal cortex!

Here’s my 1%: I’ll check the weather. I’ll read obituaries of people I actually knew. If there’s a genuine emergency — not a political emergency, not a democracy-is-dying emergency, but a get-in-your-car-and-drive emergency — I trust someone will call me.

Everything else? Let it filter or let it go. If it’s important enough, it’ll find me. If it’s just important enough to ruin my afternoon, I don’t want to know.

The operators are no longer standing by. They’ve left the building. They’re at home, reading books, taking walks, having conversations about things they can actually affect.

Order now! Or don’t. We’ve stopped checking.

(Offer not valid in Mississippi, Alabama, Texas and other American Bottom Third states. But also, who are we kidding — it’s not really valid anywhere anymore.)