Some encouraging news, but not about ICE

 Last night caucuses were held in Minnesota.  I hadn't attended a caucus for quite a while because the last caucus I attended was so poorly run and it was just chaos.  Not last night. Last night was very different--well organized, efficient, and a much more pleasant experience.  But what was also different? The turnout.  The number of people attending.  What was especially great was the number of younger people.  This was not just a bunch of old folks.  Not this time.  And there was diversity in my room as well.  Turnout was amazing and the reports from the DFL are as follows:

"Minnesota DFL

• Early reports from DFL officials indicate at least 30,000 people gathered across the state for in-person caucuses.
• We saw rooms filled well beyond capacity, standing room only in classrooms and gymnasiums, cars around the block, and lines stretching out the door.
• In Eagan, one site reported more than 75% first-time caucus-goers.
• In Lyon County, organizers reported record attendance for a non-presidential year, and in Fillmore County, a precinct ran out of chairs as crowds kept coming.
• Longtime organizers across Minnesota said they’d never seen turnout like this — even in presidential years.

That’s what happens when our communities refuse to be divided. That’s what our state looks like when we show up together."

When I arrived in talking to the conveners, they expected everyone would be a delegate who wanted to be a delegate, but then people just kept coming. They had never seen a turnout like last night. And I remember how crowded it was at the last caucus I went to - it was the Democratic Presidential election with Obama vs. Clinton. So, this is definitely a sign. People are ready to fight for democracy, fight for our rights, fight for the rights of immigrants, and more.

And I got to meet some neighbors I hadn't known before, but will get to know better because we are all delegates going to the next stage. It was a good night. And it not only gave me joy, it gave me hope.

Last night and today's decision by the Supreme Court to allow new California Congressional Districts to stand.

We needed some good news.

Day 22 of the Occupation - release of Streets of Minneapolis by Bruce Springsteen

 Today Bruce Springsteen released a protest song.  It is powerful.  You can listen and lyrics below.

Lyrics

Lyrics to ‘Streets of Minneapolis’ 

Through the winter’s ice and cold
Down Nicollet Avenue
A city aflame fought fire and ice
‘Neath an occupier’s boots
King Trump’s private army from the DHS
Guns belted to their coats
Came to Minneapolis to enforce the law
Or so their story goes
Against smoke and rubber bullets
By the dawn’s early light
Citizens stood for justice
Their voices ringing through the night
And there were bloody footprints
Where mercy should have stood
And two dead left to die on snow-filled streets
Alex Pretti and Renee Good

Oh our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Singing through the bloody mist
We’ll take our stand for this land
And the stranger in our midst
Here in our home they killed and roamed
In the winter of ’26
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis

Trump’s federal thugs beat up on
His face and his chest
Then we heard the gunshots
And Alex Pretti lay in the snow, dead
Their claim was self defense, sir
Just don’t believe your eyes
It’s our blood and bones
And these whistles and phones
Against Miller and Noem’s dirty lies

Oh our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Crying through the bloody mist
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis

Now they say they’re here to uphold the law
But they trample on our rights
If your skin is black or brown my friend
You can be questioned or deported on sight

In chants of ICE out now
Our city’s heart and soul persists
Through broken glass and bloody tears
On the streets of Minneapolis

Oh our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Singing through the bloody mist
Here in our home they killed and roamed
In the winter of ’26
We’ll take our stand for this land
And the stranger in our midst
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis

Melt the Ice Hat - Knitting Pattern

Melt the Ice Hat - https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/melt-the-ice-hat “

in the 1940’s, Norwegians made and wore red pointed hats with a tassel as a form of visual protest against Nazi occupation of their country. Within two years, the Nazis made these protest hats illegal and punishable by law to wear, make, or distribute” $5 all proceeds go to LynLake community if businesses. #melttheicehat

 

MLK - "The past is strewn with the ruins of the empires of tyranny, and each is a monument not merely to man’s blunders but to his capacity to overcome them"

 The following is an excerpt from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s final essay, A Testament of Hope:

People are often surprised to learn that I am an optimist. They know how often I have been jailed, how frequently the days and nights have been filled with frustration and sorrow, how bitter and dangerous are my adversaries. They expect these experiences to harden me into a grim and desperate man.

They fail, however, to perceive the sense of affirmation generated by the challenge of embracing struggle and surmounting obstacles. They have no comprehension of the strength that comes from faith in God and man.

It is possible for me to falter, but I am profoundly secure in my knowledge that God loves us; he has not worked out a design for our failure. Man has the capacity to do right as well as wrong, and his history is a path upward, not downward.

The past is strewn with the ruins of the empires of tyranny, and each is a monument not merely to man’s blunders but to his capacity to overcome them. While it is a bitter fact that in America in 1968, I am denied equality solely because I am black, yet I am not a chattel slave. Millions of people have fought thousands of battles to enlarge my freedom; restricted as it still is, progress has been made.

This is why I remain an optimist, though I am also a realist, about the barriers before us. Why is the issue of equality still so far from solution in America, a nation that professes itself to be democratic, inventive, hospitable to new ideas, rich, productive and awesomely powerful?

The problem is so tenacious because, despite its virtues and attributes, America is deeply racist and its democracy is flawed both economically and socially. All too many Americans believe justice will unfold painlessly or that its absence for black people will be tolerated tranquilly. Justice for black people will not flow into society merely from court decisions nor from fountains of political oratory. Nor will a few token changes quell all the tempestuous yearnings of millions of disadvantaged black people.

White America must recognize that justice for black people cannot be achieved without radical changes in the structure of our society. The comfortable, the entrenched, the privileged cannot continue to tremble at the prospect of change in the status quo.

Courtesy of Andy Borowitz

"How it works is each of us doing one small good thing, every day."

 A BAD WEEK by Anne Lamott

This week has felt like the bad shift when winter first begins and all of a sudden in the morning it's dark, and it is dark in the early evening, and the whole day becomes elliptically squeezed. All hope is lost.

 This was the feeling of the people who called me Wednesday morning in despair: Venezuela—blood for oil again— and Trump’s threats against Cuba and Colombia, and baby bear killer RFK’s dismantling of the vaccine schedule that has been saving millions of children for decades, and the threats to Greenland, and the footage playing all day of January 6.

  There was just nothing in any of our brain pans that could accommodate this much chaos and harm, let alone handle it emotionally. And that was the good old days, because later that morning, ICE agents killed a young widow in Minneapolis, the murder defended within a couple of hours by the Department of Orwellian Gas, I mean DHS, with dog killer Kristi Noem in a festive new cowgirl outfit.

  It felt like we were in free fall. How would we even go on? How do we come through this, fight back, and not give up on this country, on democracy, on the preciousness of life? Where would we even start?

 I said to everyone who called what I always say: We breathe, take care of the suffering and poor, including ourselves, donate whatever we can afford We get outside and look around at the miracle. Praying people pray.

  And for me, most of all, we set Stephen Miller as our North Star: Every day we think of one thing we can do that would make his head explode.

  (Do I think he is the anti-Christ? I don’t know; I’m a drop out. It’s just that I don’t think the anti-Christ would wear his belt up so high. He’s Pat Buchanan, without the charm. And maybe this is harsh and beneath a nice Sunday School teacher like myself, but I am not sure he is Trump’s best conduit.)

  I proceeded to do what I had urged upon everyone who called. I heard when I first got sober in 1986 that we take the action first, and then the insight is revealed. This always helps, and indeed, a flickering hope was restored that afternoon. This deadly storm of evil behavior was going to built solidarity—the next No Kings will be double in size and all over the world. This evil will be a catalyst for change—Look at all the vulnerable House Republicans who are pushing back, and/or resigning.

  So dum de dum, I seriously started feeling calmer about It All. Now, if I were God’s West Coast rep, I would have good and merciful changes happen much more quickly than they’re going to. Lennon told us and I believe him that everything turns out okay in the end, and if it isn’t okay, it isn’t the end. And now I had my North Star.

  Somehow, hope survived the next breaking news, that Customs agents had shot two people in Portland. Sigh. Government agents are going to keep shooting and killing us, and Trump will keep expanding the number of places he might just want to invade. This seems like our new reality, but amazingly, it is only one aspect of it. Let’s not forget good old yin and yang. That same afternoon, the Senate voted for the war powers resolution, with five Republicans crossing over, and the House voted to extend the Obamacare subsidies for three years, with 17 GOP votes. And the footage from Iran is thrilling, the massive protests in the streets. The government had to shut down the Internet to try and suppress this, but as Jesus said, when those in power try to stifle the news of love and freedom, the stones will cry out.

 Yesterday, all over Twitter, the people of Minneapolis kept posting things along the lines of having panic attacks, but going to have a little lunch or charge there phones and then head back to the streets to try and keep their neighbors safe.

  This courage moves me almost to tears. I wish us praying people could pray a fast turnaround—Remember Flip Wilson saying, “I’m about to pray. Anybody need anything?” This isn’t how it works. How it works is each of us doing one small good thing, every day.

  All the courage I’m seeing around me thrusts me into these deep days of winter, where I notice is how the slant of light is exquisite.

To read more of Anne's work, subscribe to her Substack here.

Recommended books for January 12, 2026

Times like these when

• the WH can rewrite history - WH statement on January 6, 2021
• lie about the murder of an innocent woman (too many sources to link to)
• detain American citizens 
• detain Native Americans in Minneapolis
• and continue to inflict pain on innocent people
  
  calls for the following books to be recommended.  Maybe even purchased in case they too disappear as the regime re-writes history:

Animal Farm, George Orwell

1984, George Orwell - "The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."

Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury

I think most readers have probably read these before in high school, so I don't need to really summarize each one.  You can find multiple editions, translations, and more in your public library.  Or for local folks, head over the NextChapter bookstore on Snelling and Grand which has set up a display  "Books for Tough Times".

1984 and Animal Farm by George Orwell - 75th editions were published in 2003.  Take a look at NextChapter website - Animal Farm. and 1984

Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury

NextChapter website - Fahrenheit 451

WorldCat for locating in your local library.

And just in case you have read this far, submit a recommendation for a book to read.

Poem for Renee Nicole Good by Amanda Gorman

April 2, 1988 - January 7, 2026

For Renee Nicole Good

Killed by I.C.E. on January 7, 2026

by Amanda Gorman

They say she is no more,
That there her absence roars,
Blood-blown like a rose.
Iced wheels flinched & froze.
Now, bare riot of candles,
Dark fury of flowers,
Pure howling of hymns.

If for us she arose,
Somewhere, in the pitched deep of our grief,
Crouches our power,
The howl where we begin,
Straining upon the edge of the crooked crater
Of the worst of what we’ve been.

Change is only possible,
& all the greater,
When the labour
& bitter anger of our neighbors
Is moved by the love 
& better angels of our nature.

What they call death & void,
We know is breath & voice; 
In the end, gorgeously, 
Endures our enormity. 

You could believe departed to be the dawn
When the blank night has so long stood.
But our bright-fled angels will never be fully gone,
When they forever are so fiercely Good.