ICE is in Retreat

But don’t always trust the headlines

It appears to be true that the Immigration, Customs Enforcement agents are leaving the U.S. Coast Guard base on Terminal Island in East San Pedro. Where are they retreating to?

What is known is that from the very beginning, the ICE raids in Los Angeles spurred the resistance to them all over LA and in the local areas of the San Pedro harbor area. They have been loud, strong, and growing. And it became even more so with the murders of the two US citizens in Minneapolis.  And then came the huge miles-long peaceful protest that followed.

The Harbor Area Peace Patrol is relieved but wary about this retreat.

The official lies about those two murders and other illegal actions by ICE agents could not be denied because of the witness videos, and yet the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said the agents fired in self-defense after Pretti, who they say had a handgun, resisted their attempts to disarm him. The videos of the witnesses show a much different story that seems to be self-evident. However, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told NBC’s Meet the Press that the videos were unclear and “there is a lot we don’t see” in them, so it was important to have an investigation. I think they’d like to bury any investigation, just like the Epstein files.

NBC also reported federal agents shot three people in Minneapolis in January, killing two U.S. citizens, Alex Pretti and Renee Good. Videos contradict the Trump administration’s account of their deaths. And later reported that 13 people have been shot since September 2025.

Will there ever be justice for  Renée Nicole Macklin Good, a 37-year-old American woman, or Alex Pretti, who were both shot dead by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis? The current standoff in the US Congress over funding of the Department of Homeland Security is due to these egregious actions of masked ICE agents. This may be partly why the alleged “drawdown” of forces in Minnesota, Terminal Island, and elsewhere is happening. If that is true, then the Democrats should have stood up to the Orange Felon’s secret police and done what should have been done last July 4th with the Big Ugly Budget. One can only hope the agents involved will ever be indicted for murder.

There’s A Curious Thing About Human Psychology

I recently read a book that kind of explains why people make bad decisions. It’s called  Collective Illusions: Conformity, Complicity, and the Science of Why We Make Bad Decisions by Todd Rose. He argues that humans often act against their own interests due to a “conformity bias,” a hardwired need to fit in that makes us believe false assumptions about what others think, leading to bad decisions, mistrust, and unhappiness. It all has to do with the perception of what the majority believes in any given group. As a rule, most people don’t like being ostracized or “othered” because of something they say or do that goes against the grain of the perceived majority. You see this all the time in local councils and boards of directors, but it’s also true on the national level.

The problem with the MAGA Republicans is that just because the Orange Tyrant won the election by the slimmest of popular votes in both 2016 and 2024. (Actually, there’s evidence he didn’t win the popular vote in the last election). This gave them the advantage of believing there was overwhelming support for anything Trump did. A mandate, so to speak. They were wrong!

Yet the true believers of MAGA can’t see or even understand how a growing number of people are resisting the autocratic edicts being meted out from this regime. The obscenity is that they and their deranged leader can’t see how quickly they are losing ground and accomplishing the negative of making America great.

Was it just the murders by ICE that people are outraged by, or was it the anthem by singer Bruce Springsteen, Streets of Minneapolis, that spoke truth to the power that inspired more resistance, like the singing of the French La Marseillaise anthem in Rick’s bar in the movie Casablanca?

In times like this, it’s important, necessary, for people to find the courage not to be silent. For silence is considered compliance, complicity, or worse, condoning. I refer you all to watch the recent Ken Burns’ documentary on the American Revolution, for it reveals the reasons for the uprising against the tyrannies of King George that birthed this nation. It was the illegal searches and seizures, the Boston Massacre, the arrests without warrants, the brutality of the British army, and the mercenary Hessians that tried to suppress the American spirit of liberty and freedom. It is eerily relevant to what we are seeing today on the streets of America with masked ICE agents. It begs the question: What is our freedom and liberty worth today?

The very same ideals are what’s at stake today because of the repressions by our very own government that has been taken over by a wannabe celebrity narcissist bully and the billionaire elites. This house of cards will eventually fall with the revelations of the Epstein files and the insane absurdities of the Orange Tyrant himself.