On January 7, gang members — gathered in Minneapolis for the purpose of abducting immigrants and cowing the state’s population — menaced motorist Renee Nicole Good, then murdered her when she attempted to flee.

This wasn’t the ICE gang’s first murder, and won’t likely be its last.

ICE, its allied gangs — “Homeland Security,” “Customs and Border Protection,” et al. — and its shot-callers (e.g. Kristi “Ice Barbie” Noem, Greg “Lying Poltroon” Bovino, and Tom “$50k Cash in a Paper Bag Isn’t a Bribe” Homan) are at war. They’re at war with America, and they’re waging that war on Americans. The presence of immigrants on US soil is the excuse, not the point.

How should Americans go about defeating this armed and dangerous domestic enemy?

The first thing to understand about the conflict is that it’s “asymmetric.”

The evildoers are a centrally commanded paramilitary force. Yes, they’re violent wannabes who are too lazy, incompetent, or evil to find real jobs, but their sociopath bosses give them effectively unlimited funding and access to advanced weaponry.

The forces of good, on the other hand, are everyday Americans (and immigrants) who’d really rather be left alone to make their livings doing productive work. No central command. No guaranteed paychecks courtesy of the nation’s tax slaves. Few automatic weapons.

Believe it or not, that asymmetry can actually work to the benefit of the good guys.

As satisfying — and as justified — as it would be to send these hoodlums home in body bags when they get violent, another recent incident in the Minneapolis area shows a more peaceful, and more effective, way forward.

“If you are with DHS or immigration, let us know as we will have to cancel your reservation,” read a January 2 email from Lakeville’s Hampton Inn Hilton (the ICE gang redacted the identity of the recipient in its whining post on X). “Please pass on this info to your coworkers that we are not allowing any immigration agents to house on our property.”

Unfortunately, the hotel’s owners, Everpeak Hospitality, backed down, and Hilton Hotels apologized, groveled, and canceled its franchise agreement with Everspeak.

As Hilton likes to tell us, “It Matters Where You Stay.” I can’t help but wonder if Renee Nicole Good’s murderer spent the night before his crime enjoying Hampton’s “light and warmth of hospitality.”

Setting this specific murder aside for a moment, given the high proportion of immigrants who work in the hospitality industry, why would ANY hotelier want to host a violent gang which focuses on targeting its employees? And why would any non-violent, non-gang-affiliated patron want to rent a room there?

Ostracism can be more effective than violence.

If ICE gang-bangers start finding that they can’t rent hotel rooms, get served at coffee shops, receive communion at churches, or find play dates for their kids with decent people’s kids, they’ll be incentivized to modify their behavior, abandon the thug life, and seek real jobs.

But getting there will take some peaceful pressure from normal people … perhaps starting with a boycott of Hilton-affiliated hotels.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

I’m writing this column on the morning of Saturday, January 3, with initial news trickling in. “The facts” are still thin, and some of them will likely turn out to be either incomplete or not “facts” at all, but a few real facts are foundational and not subject to change. Let’s go through them:

First, US president Donald Trump’s attack on Venezuela is illegal under US law and should result in his impeachment, conviction, removal from office, and eventually imprisonment. Congress has not declared war on Venezuela; therefore Trump has zero authority to wage said war. But he’s been doing so at low intensity for months and just kicked it into high gear with multiple strikes on, and the claimed abduction of the titular “leader” of, Venezuela.

Second, Trump’s attack on Venezuela is an illegal war of aggression under international law — and since the Venezuelan regime is a member state of the International Criminal Court, Trump and everyone below him in the chain of command who participates in it are now subject to indictment, arrest, and prosecution for all of the crimes the attack entails.

Third, Trump’s attack on Venezuela was entirely optional. There was no plausible, let alone imminent, threat against the United States by the Venezuelan regime that could have served as an excuse for “retaliation” or any plea of “necessity.” Whatever Trump’s reason for ordering the attack (personally, I suspect it’s just another attempt to distract from his long, close, personal relationship with Jeffrey Epstein), those reasons are his own, not “America’s.”

Fourth, the whole thing is indescribably stupid and evil. US troops’ lives are being put at risk. US taxpayers’ money is being wasted. And the operation has the makings of extending that risk and increasing that waste by way of reproducing past “regime change” / “nation-building” fiascos such as South Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

The very best possible outcome of the attack is that the Venezuelan people rise up, overthrow the current regime, and replace it with something more to their liking — but probably not to the Washington, DC regime’s liking. Which they could have done at any time, without Trump’s help, had they chosen to.

The more likely outcome is that US forces will install a puppet/quisling regime to rule Venezuela to Trump’s (and Big Oil’s) liking, then spend years bleeding American blood and treasure into the place before an ignominious departure (with or without formal surrender).

What’s NOT likely is that Trump and his accomplices will be removed from office/power, charged under US law, or extradited for trial under international law.

That’s a shame. Letting violent criminals get away with violent crimes is an invitation to continue committing those crimes.

So much for a peaceful 2026.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

Well, that about wraps it up for 2025. As I write this, the old year only has four days left to produce any delightful — or nasty — surprises before giving way to the new one.

I can’t say 2025 produced much in the way of good news. Many of its events and developments will continue to annoy and impoverish us  well into 2026. Rather than spend an entire column going over those things, allow me to offer a cautionary note on what is or isn’t worth expecting NEXT year.

We live in the age of the permanent campaign, and everywhere I turn I see Democrats, actual Republicans (as opposed to Trumpists), and supposed “independents” looking forward to next November’s midterm congressional elections with hope, even excitement: Democrats will take the US Senate and the House, they hope, thwarting Donald Trump’s policy agenda.

The odds are not with those hopes or that excitement.

The Cook Report, a sort of gold standard when it comes to predicting outcomes, rates only two Senate races as “toss-ups.” Both those seats are currently held by Democrats, who need to pick up a net four seats for a majority. Very unlikely.

The House situation isn’t as dire for Democrats, but Polymarket, a betting/prediction market with a pretty good record, only gives them a 45% chance of flipping three seats to get a majority.

But, let’s suppose that, through some quasi-miraculous chain of events, next November produces a Congress controlled by Democrats.

What changes?

The sitting president has demonstrated — multiple times over an entire first term and the first year of another — that when Congress doesn’t give him what he wants, he just takes it. The court system has proven itself fairly ineffectual at stopping him.

And even if, in a second set of miracles, Trump simmers down or gets routinely thwarted in the courts, it’s not like the Democrats are THAT different from the Republicans.

First-term Trump gave us massive tax increases in the form of tariffs. Joe Biden kept most of those tariffs and even expanded some. Second-term Trump put them on steroids.

First-term Trump escalated every war he inherited from Barack Obama, re-started an old war in Somalia, and handed it all off to Biden, who continued down the same path everywhere except Afghanistan.

And both Republicans and Democrats in Congress let both of them get away with it, while increasing government spending and increasing government debt, introducing new “national security” and surveillance state horrors, etc.

Neither Republican nor Democratic politicians want to fix things even if they could, and they can’t. Various third party and independent candidates might want to, but even given an opportunity they’d likely be unsuccessful.

Government THROUGH politics is not going to get us out of the mess we’ve been putting and keeping ourselves in WITH politics for more than a century now.

Our only hope is that the system collapses — which isn’t likely to happen in the next year — and that we can replace it with something better, which seems even less likely.

Happy New Year, I guess.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY