Bondi’s letter isn’t unprecedented, it’s textbook authoritarian playbook.
Argentina’s junta made identical demands: surrender sovereignty, hand over data, cooperate with paramilitary operations, or the violence continues.
Here’s what destroys the regime’s argument:
They admit it’s a protection racket. DOJ literally told the court: “there is no hint of a quid pro quo…she does not…commit to end Operation Metro Surge under any circumstance.”
Translation: Submit to all demands, and we still won’t leave. That’s not negotiation, that’s extortion with no exit.
Every demand violates existing court orders. Bondi’s response: “Do it anyway or we keep killing your citizens.”
The DOJ’s own filing proves malice. So official statements only count when convenient? That’s not law, that’s nihilism.
The pattern is operational.
Bovino gets demoted for being too visible, Homan arrives with PR-friendly “drawdown” language while ICE abducts people during his press conference. Trump admits on camera “nothing is going to change.”
Classic two steps forward, one step back: infrastructure stays, rhetoric softens, mission continues.
This is how democracies end. Not with tanks, but with attorney generals putting protection rackets on official letterhead.
The regime depends on compliance masquerading as voluntary cooperation. Minnesota refused.
That’s why they’re under occupation.
Every other state watching needs to understand: submission doesn’t end the violence, it expands it.
Good points. The Ayatollah Trump has struck again. His Republican Guards are still in Minnesota, and Georgia gave up their personal data because they have a Mullah for a governor.
Each day is outrageous, and everything that Trump does is outrageous. I think people should be calling for State's rights the way the MAGAs did all through Biden's presidency. Defund the Ayatollah Trump and all of his Mullahs like Bondi, Homan, Bovino, Noem, Kennedy, Vance, Miller, Vought, etc... No funding of this government as long as it does not follow and enforce the constitution.
“We have been deformed by educational and religious institutions that treat us as members of an audience instead of actors in a drama, so we become adults who treat democracy as a spectator sport.”
Interestingly, ever-valiant Stephen Miller blurts, “Might is right!” (or in undertones, “White is Right”) but Minneapolis is proof otherwise: The city (and state) wasn’t cowed … and bullying is not real power but, like Venezuela, a sucker punch.
Anyone who actually believed that exchanging one goon (Bovino) with another goon (Homan) would usher in a new era of peace, love and reconciliation in Minnesota is also gullible enough to believe that pigs fly or that hell can freeze over.
Liz, you are not the first to point out that Cava Bag used military jargon about the ongoing ICE/Border Patrol rape of MSP yesterday: in theater, draw down, rotations, de-escalation. Yep, it's a military exercise as promised by the mad dictator (the latter his own word used in Davos this month) when he spoke at the idiotic command performance of military leaders on 09/30/2025: use "dangerous" American cities, i.e., those with uncooperative and non-compliant Dems for mayors, as "training grounds." We can't say we weren't warned.
All the while, the occupation continues unabated and the lies, threats and extortion from one Blondie Bondi continue to spew forth.
Before our very eyes, the people of MSP and MN have been putting on a live seminar about how to bravely resist tyranny. The invaders and their superiors should have realized that people who can gather to protest in sub-zero temperatures are not to be trifled with.
As the great Lawrence O'Donnell said in the opening segment of The Last Word last night: the protesters are winning. And we shall overcome.
The list of individuals in this administration whose actions demonstrate utter ignorance and incompetence just keeps getting longer by the day- what will be the tipping point in Congress where the Republicans finally open their eyes to the disastrous consequences of this administration and take a stand? Many of these politicians will forever be linked with Trump in history with the honor of being labeled “the worst of the worst “.
Bondi’s letter isn’t unprecedented, it’s textbook authoritarian playbook.
Argentina’s junta made identical demands: surrender sovereignty, hand over data, cooperate with paramilitary operations, or the violence continues.
Here’s what destroys the regime’s argument:
They admit it’s a protection racket. DOJ literally told the court: “there is no hint of a quid pro quo…she does not…commit to end Operation Metro Surge under any circumstance.”
Translation: Submit to all demands, and we still won’t leave. That’s not negotiation, that’s extortion with no exit.
Every demand violates existing court orders. Bondi’s response: “Do it anyway or we keep killing your citizens.”
The DOJ’s own filing proves malice. So official statements only count when convenient? That’s not law, that’s nihilism.
The pattern is operational.
Bovino gets demoted for being too visible, Homan arrives with PR-friendly “drawdown” language while ICE abducts people during his press conference. Trump admits on camera “nothing is going to change.”
Classic two steps forward, one step back: infrastructure stays, rhetoric softens, mission continues.
This is how democracies end. Not with tanks, but with attorney generals putting protection rackets on official letterhead.
The regime depends on compliance masquerading as voluntary cooperation. Minnesota refused.
That’s why they’re under occupation.
Every other state watching needs to understand: submission doesn’t end the violence, it expands it.
Bondi wrote the confession. Use it.
—Johan
Incisive. Yet unlike Argentina, Trump has a history of backing down in the face of approbation; and Georgia has stood up before.
Homan does not = 'backing down'. Georgia may have stood up; it also just got raped.
Good points. The Ayatollah Trump has struck again. His Republican Guards are still in Minnesota, and Georgia gave up their personal data because they have a Mullah for a governor.
Actually , the FBI raid on Georgia- like the one on Caracus - was a surprise attack, taking the state and Fulton County unawares.
Each day is outrageous, and everything that Trump does is outrageous. I think people should be calling for State's rights the way the MAGAs did all through Biden's presidency. Defund the Ayatollah Trump and all of his Mullahs like Bondi, Homan, Bovino, Noem, Kennedy, Vance, Miller, Vought, etc... No funding of this government as long as it does not follow and enforce the constitution.
“We have been deformed by educational and religious institutions that treat us as members of an audience instead of actors in a drama, so we become adults who treat democracy as a spectator sport.”
-Parker Palmer
Do we have to add "unprecedented?" Isn't "illegal" enough (and stronger)?
Interestingly, ever-valiant Stephen Miller blurts, “Might is right!” (or in undertones, “White is Right”) but Minneapolis is proof otherwise: The city (and state) wasn’t cowed … and bullying is not real power but, like Venezuela, a sucker punch.
Once again, it should be noted that Roy Cohn notwithstanding, Trump’s first crush was John Gotti, not unfamiliar with protection rackets.
Anyone who actually believed that exchanging one goon (Bovino) with another goon (Homan) would usher in a new era of peace, love and reconciliation in Minnesota is also gullible enough to believe that pigs fly or that hell can freeze over.
Liz, you are not the first to point out that Cava Bag used military jargon about the ongoing ICE/Border Patrol rape of MSP yesterday: in theater, draw down, rotations, de-escalation. Yep, it's a military exercise as promised by the mad dictator (the latter his own word used in Davos this month) when he spoke at the idiotic command performance of military leaders on 09/30/2025: use "dangerous" American cities, i.e., those with uncooperative and non-compliant Dems for mayors, as "training grounds." We can't say we weren't warned.
All the while, the occupation continues unabated and the lies, threats and extortion from one Blondie Bondi continue to spew forth.
Before our very eyes, the people of MSP and MN have been putting on a live seminar about how to bravely resist tyranny. The invaders and their superiors should have realized that people who can gather to protest in sub-zero temperatures are not to be trifled with.
As the great Lawrence O'Donnell said in the opening segment of The Last Word last night: the protesters are winning. And we shall overcome.
The list of individuals in this administration whose actions demonstrate utter ignorance and incompetence just keeps getting longer by the day- what will be the tipping point in Congress where the Republicans finally open their eyes to the disastrous consequences of this administration and take a stand? Many of these politicians will forever be linked with Trump in history with the honor of being labeled “the worst of the worst “.