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Maximum Damage and Massacre: ICE Kills, ICE Lies
What to say. Alex Pretti, 37, a kind, principled, hard-working ICU nurse who cared for real soldiers in dire need was executed in the street at close range by a vicious gang of government sociopaths cosplaying as soldiers. After state terror killed him, state terror smeared him with "flat-out insane" lies, because the man who dedicated his life to helping others was murdered by a man who has dedicated his life to hurting others. Pretti died trying to protect two women.
Pretti, 37, was a registered nurse in the intensive care unit at the Minneapolis VA Health Care System; he had also taken part in research projects. His only previous interaction with law enforcement was for traffic tickets. Colleagues describe him as someone who "cared about people deeply" and "always rose to the level above and beyond what we expected of him." "He wanted to help people," said Dr. Dimitri Drekonja, chief of infectious diseases at the VA hospital. "He was an outstanding nurse who'd go out of his way to help." Pretti was also an "infectious spirit, quick with a joke"; the two men often talked about mountain biking, which they both loved. "You could not think of a kinder, gentler, sweeter person," said Dr. Aasma Shaukat. ”It really, truly gave him joy to interact with patients. And he always spoke about doing the right thing. He was a very principled person."Videos from Saturday morning's protest in Minneapolis show Pretti, dressed in brown, directing traffic and filming federal agents; forensic video analysis clearly shows his right hand holding up his phone, and his left hand empty. When agents start pushing protesters and observers back, Pretti retreats with them but keeps filming. As one thug violently shoves a woman to the ground, Pretti moves to help her, in response, the thug pepper sprays both Pretti and the woman in the face. As Pretti struggles to continue filming and protecting the woman, a swarm of six or seven nearby agents in full tactical gear rush in to pull Pretti away from her; they slam him to the ground, pin his arms down, and begin beating, punching, kicking him; one appears to pistol-whip Pretti about the head as other protesters yell for them to stop.
An agent suddenly shouts Pretti has a gun; he was reportedly carrying a legally registered handgun, in what is an open-carry state, as part of a community-led first-responder network. One goon steps in, pulls it out of Pretti's waistband and walks away from the melee; seconds later, as Pretti strains to get up on one knee, another thug pulls out his gun and shoots him point-blank in the back. As Pretti collapses, at least one other agent begins shooting too; both continue firing 8 or 10 times as Pretti lies motionless on the ground. The closest sick fuck to Pretti claps as the shots ring out, and turns triumphantly away. Around them, people are screaming, crying and filming. "What the fuck did you just do?! What the fuck did you just do?! shrieks a woman, then "Oh my God, oh my God." She starts sobbing, but keeps recording. "You fucking people, you're fucking killing us," she wails. "Why would you do that?!"
Even more than the murder of Renee Good, Pretti's execution was brutally documented by eyewitnesses. When the firing begins, there's video from a suddenly shocked guy inside a donut place across the street: "What?! Are you fucking kidding me?" There are painstakingly detailed forensic analyses- here and here - that clearly show Pretti holding his phone (not gun), helping the observer, pinned to the ground when he was shot. There's video from the weeping, resolute woman recording behind him, and two sworn affidavits - for an ACLU lawsuit - based on testimony from her and a physician who watched from his apartment, went to the scene and insisted on checking for a pulse when agents (again) failed to do so: "I asked if (Pretti) had a pulse and they said they didn't know"; they were focused on counting how many times he'd been hit.
Virtually all that first-hand evidence contradicts every absurd claim the regime - lying goons, lying DHS, lying so-called president - has subsequently made in an ongoing response "at best indifferent to the evidence available (and) at worst completely fabricated." "This is a documented execution, down to evidence staging," said one critic after a curated White House photo of a handgun Trump called "the gunman’s gun.” The bullshit started within minutes when mini-Nazi Greg Bovino announced that as brave thugs were conducting a "targeted operation" against a Very Scary "illegal alien," "an individual approached (them) with a 9 mm handgun. The agents attempted to disarm the suspect but he violently resisted and an officer, fearing for his life, fired defensive shots...This looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do MAXIMUM DAMAGE and MASSACRE law enforcement." Also, then, "rioters."
Their scripted claptrap kept coming, a shameless, venomous flood of lies from a cohort of comic-book villains. Fucking ICE Barbie echoed fucking Bovino, with flourishes: An "armed suspect," now "brandishing" his weapon, approached agents "to inflict maximum damage and kill law enforcement...I state the facts as they unfolded." Stephen Goebbels called Pretti "a would-be assassin" who tried to murder feds and blasted Democrats who "side with the terrorists.” Dems replied, "You’re a f*cking liar with blood on your hands.” Drunktank Pete raved, "Thank God for the patriots of @ICEgov...You are SAVING the country." The White House reminded zealots to call Pretti "a terrorist" in messaging, and Trump babbled Walz and Frey are covering up billions in "Theft and Fraud,” his racist pretext for starting the mayhem when, per Aaron Rupar, "None. Of. This. Was. Necessary."
Nor is it normal, or often, legal. Again, corrupt feds blocked state investigators from access to the murder scene. They tried to block city cops too, but the police chief ordered them to stay and do their work. Bovino says his thugs, murderers among them, are all back on the streets, and Kash's Keystone FBI are on the case; they just arrested four perps for damaging an FBI vehicle and stealing stuff. But their abuses have grown so unhinged even some Repubs are saying, "Enough," and the Wall Street Journal just urged the regime to step back from "what is becoming a moral and political debacle.” Highlighting the federal government's literal lethal war on blue states - "Obey or die" - evil Pam Bond said the quiet, election-stealing part out loud, effectively warning Minnesota officials the killings will continue until they fork over voter rolls. All of us are in peril, activists insists, not just Minnesota: "We’re performing CPR on what may already be a corpse called the Constitution."
Fascism then and nowPhoto from BlueSky
AOC calls Alex Pretti's murder - again, point-blank, broad daylight- "a momentous, pivotal moment." Maybe. Certainly, as Tim Walz argues, "They're telling you not to trust your eyes and ears," and as others argue, "Every person who voted for Trump has blood on their hands." For now, Jonathan Last writes, our task is to at least bear witness. In the wake of the murder of Renee Good, "The murder of Alex Pretti was not a mistake, or a tragedy, or a misunderstanding. It was a choice. The president (and) his regime saw what its masked agents had done to (Good) and decided to do more of it...Killing Alex Pretti was (their) policy...which means the federal government is at war with the citizenry. Or at least the part (it) deems undesirable." "If people in Minneapolis can be treated this way, Americans anywhere can be treated this way," he concludes. "To avert your eyes from this reality is to insult the sacrifices Renee Nicole Good and Alex Jeffrey Pretti made for our country."
Alex Pretti's parents apparently found out about their son's death, not from those responsible for it, but from an AP reporter who asked them about it. No federal official contacted them; in fact, none has yet picked up a phone to them. After struggling to get any information from DHS or other federal law enforcement, they called the county medical examiner's office, who said, yes, they had a body matching the name and description of their son. In the wake of such horrors, Minnesota organizer Keith Edwards began an "Alex Pretti is an American Hero" fundraising campaign. The initial goal was $20,000. Reflecting Americans' rage and grief, it has now raised over a million dollars, with donations ranging from $10,000 to, often, $5 or $10. Edwards has thanked donors with, "You are what America can look like at our best."
Many moving comments come from "a whole family of us nurses who will carry him in our hearts." They "mourn for the innumerable lives Alex WOULD have saved and the lives he WOULD have touched," for "a life taken too soon" while "honoring the calling we all share." From a fellow critical care nurse in the UK: "Sent with love, disbelief and abject horror. Rest in Power Alex." Many thank his parents: "For raising someone brave who will be remembered as a beacon at the turn of the tide," for "raising such a beautiful soul who stood up for what is right, and showed what love and dignity look like...We will not let your son be forgotten...Alex is any of us, and all of us." "Be Good, be Pretti," they wrote. "Murdered for being a good human being," and, "Your actions were more than just an intervention - they were a profound hymn of human courage...Your light will guide the way for so many who follow."
Protests continue in Minneapolis, people's breath mixing with plumes of tear gas in the frigid air. Fed-up prison officials are exposing the regime's lies, the National Guard are giving out doughnuts, more furious white citizens are saying, "This is not OK." George Conway: "I just checked...The Constitution does *not* say ‘a bunch of sociopaths (can) do whatever the f*ck they want and make sh*t up as they go along.’” New video shows a woman sobbing as her husband is brutally tackled by more roving goons; she tells a pastor at her side they were just trying to escape the tear gas. Mister Rogers: "Look for the helpers." After Alex Pretti's murder, many noted the wrenching final act of his life was trying to help a woman assaulted by the masked sadists who then killed him. His reported last words were to ask her, "Are you okay?" Later, the son of a veteran who Pretti cared for in his final hours posted video of Pretti's "final salute" honoring him. "Today, we remember that freedom is not free," he says "We have to work at it, nurture it, protect it, and even sacrifice for it... We grant him our honor and our gratitude.”
Alex Pretti and his dog Joule.Photo from BlueSky
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'We Are Running Out of Time': 2025 Keeps Hot Streak Alive for Global Temperatures
Increasing fossil fuel extraction helped make 2025 the third-hottest year on record and marked the third straight year of “extraordinary global temperatures,” according to a major new report on the climate crisis.
On Wednesday, the European Union's Copernicus climate agency published a report based on data from climate-monitoring organizations, including NASA and the World Meteorological Organization.
Based on billions of weather readings from satellites, ships, aircraft, and weather stations, the report found that, for the first time in recorded history, global temperatures over a three-year period have exceeded the critical threshold of 1.5°C above preindustrial levels.
At current rates of heating, the report found, the Earth could surpass the Paris Climate Accord’s target of 1.5°C on a long-term basis by 2030, more than a decade sooner than scientists' projection when nations negotiated the pledge to reduce emissions back in 2015.
“Atmospheric data from 2025 paints a clear picture: Human activity remains the dominant driver of the exceptional temperatures we are observing,” said Laurence Rouil, the director of Copernicus’ Atmosphere Monitoring Service. “Atmospheric greenhouse gases have steadily increased over the last 10 years.”
(Graphic from the Copernicus Climate Change Service)
As with previous years, 2025 was marked by a series of disasters fueled by rising temperatures: From a historic heatwaves that killed an estimated 24,000 people in Europe, to typhoons across Asia that displaced millions, to the wildfires that ravaged the Los Angeles area roughly a year ago and were one of a record 23 disasters in the US that exceeded more than a billion dollars in damage.
The Copernicus report was released as Australia suffered what DW News called possibly its "first megafire of the climate change age" in Victoria, which had charred over 350,000 hectares (more than 864,000 acres) of land as of Sunday and forced thousands to flee their homes.
(Video: Sky News Australia)
"Extreme weather isn’t rare anymore—it’s driving up food prices, insurance premiums, water shortages, and upending daily life across the globe," said Savio Carvalho, the managing director for campaigns and networks for the climate activist group 350. "Governments know fossil fuels are the cause of climate breakdown, yet they keep stalling on the transition. We don’t have the luxury of wasting time or taking side paths—we are running out of time."
The past year was marked by yet more disappointment for those hoping to see collective global action to reduce carbon emissions.
The most glaring setbacks occurred in the United States—the globe's largest historic polluter—where President Donald Trump has virtually halted renewable energy expansion, pushed to crank up fossil fuel extraction, and sought to end the "endangerment finding" that allows carbon emissions to be regulated on the basis of their harm to the climate.
But even in the absence of Trump, the past year's global climate summit in Brazil, COP30, once again fell well short of a cohesive international action plan, ending with no global agreement to wind down the use of oil, gas, and coal. Eighty nations failed to submit global emissions pledges, and many of those that did failed to make commitments that would likely bend the global temperature curve in a favorable direction.
Where scientists once urged nations to take swift action in the hope of passing the 1.5°C tipping point, Carlo Buontempo, the director of Copernicus, said following Wednesday's report that "we are bound to pass it."
He said, "The choice we now have is how to best manage the inevitable overshoot and its consequences on societies and natural systems."
But an overshoot is intolerable to many on the front lines of the crisis.
"In the Pacific, climate disasters are costing us billions of dollars in recovery and rebuilding," said Fenton Lutunatabua, 350's program manager for the Pacific and Caribbean. "A world beyond 1.5°C would devastate our resources even more."
"Entire villages in Fiji are being uprooted and relocated, losing connection to traditional lands and fishing grounds," he added. "Atoll nations like Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands are grappling with both adaptation and addressing the reality of potential forced migration. To give up on 1.5°C is to say that any of these realities is acceptable."
In Indonesia, where unprecedented flash floods in November killed 1,100 people, Suriadi Darmoko, an activist in Bali who is suing his government following an International Court of Justice ruling allowing states to be held legally accountable over climate harms, agreed that complacency is not an option.
“Entire communities are still buried in mud. Thousands of families are still grieving and struggling to have their basic needs met. We refuse to be treated as mere climate disaster victims," he said. "Our leaders have kept the world hooked on fossil fuels even as they knew decades ago it would lead to such tragedies."
Carvalho, too, rejected the notion that extreme warming is something the Earth must accept. Despite setbacks to collective action, 2025 also saw certain actors on the global stage make great strides toward a renewable future.
In large part due to massive investments by China, renewable sources generated more power worldwide than coal for the first time, and solar energy generation grew by 31% in the first half of the year, outpacing demand growth.
"We need to do what’s right now: a global phase out of fossil fuels is urgent," said Carvalho. "We already have the renewable energy solutions we need—what’s missing is the political will. We can prevent the worst if we act now."
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