It continues to be a very long and difficult month, especially in Minnesota.

Last week was the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, a meeting that I suspect in time will be remembered primarily for a speech delivered by Canadian PM Carney about what lies ahead for middle powers in a world where the rules-based international order has been cast aside and “great powers abandon even the pretense of rules and values for the unhindered pursuit of their power and interests.” Trump responded to the speech by rescinding Canada’s invitation to his newly established Board of Peace, and then later threatening Canada with more tariffs and referring on social media to Carney for the first time as “Governor Carney”, an epithet he used repeatedly with PM Trudeau.

Greenland was a major topic going into Davos. Trump had sent the Norwegian PM an unhinged text message that, after it leaked, was originally assumed by the right to be inauthentic until it was then confirmed that Trump had ordered copies of the text sent to all Western European leaders. After European leaders rallied behind Denmark, Trump then threatened a new 10% tariff on several Western European countries, which prompted EU threats to derail the trade deal agreed upon last year. Then, after things had gotten very tense, suddenly they weren’t: Trump announced he had reached a “framework of a future deal” on Greenland with the Secretary General of NATO. Was this another manifestation of TACO? At this point we don’t seem to know.

Nor do we know much more about the future of Venezuela than when I last wrote. Although we did have the farcical situation a week and a half ago where the reigning Nobel Peace Prize laureate, a female Venezuelan opposition leader, visited the White House and formally presented her medal to Trump. It remains completely unclear what, if anything, she got out of this piece of performance art. The glee with which Trump “accepted” the medal launched a thousand memes of Trump accepting awards that didn’t belong to him, of which perhaps my favorite was Rob & Fab from Milli Vanilli presenting Trump with their Grammy award.

We are now only several days away from another potential government shutdown, as the resolution to the previous shutdown required that certain spending bills be enacted by the end of January. The House reached bipartisan consensus on the necessary bills and then adjourned, leaving things in the hands of the Senate. Hold that thought.

Still no decision from SCOTUS on the IEEPA tariffs case. This week they did hold a very unusual oral argument in a shadow docket case, namely Trump v. Cook, arising out of Trump’s purported firing of Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. The post-argument consensus is that Cook is unlikely to immediately lose her post; it is less clear as to whether the justices will simply allow the litigation to proceed in the lower courts, or instead make a ruling that would end the controversy in Cook’s favor now.

But the main story of the week remains the situation in Minnesota, where a federal surge of ICE personnel has been met by nonviolent resistance from residents and criticized by many as an unwelcome invasion. Friday was the coldest day in the Twin Cities in almost 7 years, with the temperature at sunrise being -22 F and the windchill making it feel like -40 F. Schools were cancelled, and many local groups had called for a general strike. There was a surprisingly well-attended anti-ICE rally in downtown Minneapolis Friday afternoon, given how cold it was. However, a potentially tense situation was holding steady.

And then, yesterday morning, ICE agents killed a 37-year-old man on the streets of Minneapolis. Alex Pretti was a white U.S. citizen, an ICU nurse at a VA hospital. He was standing on a sidewalk with a phone in one hand videoing events and his other empty hand raised in the air. ICE agents pepper-sprayed a protestor that he was videoing. He went to assist her, and the ICE agents first pepper-sprayed him, then threw him to the ground and started attacking him. While they were subduing him, they discovered he was carrying a firearm, for which he had the appropriate legal permits; however, he never brandished the firearm before it was confiscated by ICE agents. After his firearm was confiscated, ICE agents fired about 10 shots into him in a manner of seconds.

At least, that is the version of events as they appear to neutral observers from available videos. If you instead listen to DHS Secretary Noem and her minions, Pretti was an “assassin” who “wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.” And it is fascinating to see the Second Amendment crowd contort themselves over how this was somehow Pretti’s fault, for legally carrying a firearm that he never brandished.

Governor Walz and Mayor Frey and Minnesota AG Ellison were already upset over the entire situation here, but Pretti’s killing has pushed everything into high gear. And it may have some immediate national implications, as several Senate Democrats now indicate they are unwilling to pass the DHS appropriations bill that had just narrowly passed the House.

In more picayune political news, Trump has taken the unusual step of endorsing a primary challenger to a Senator from his own party, throwing his support behind Louisiana Rep. Julia Letlow in her challenge against Sen. Cassidy. This is the thanks the physician-Senator gets for, against what I assume was likely his better medical judgment, casting the deciding vote in favor of RFK Jr as HHS Secretary. Julia’s husband Luke died of COVID-19 shortly after winning election to the House in 2020 but before taking his seat; she won the special election to replace him.