S. Brackett Robertson

Aliya Rahman, arrested at Capitol: 'Every time you try to break my body, you fuel my spirit.' • Minnesota Reformer The images of immigration enforcement officials dragging Aliya Rahman from her car when she was trying to get to a doctor’s appointment outraged many Americans, and now she’s been arrested, she says, ...

Aliya Rahman, arrested at Capitol: ‘Every time you try to break my body, you fuel my spirit.’ minnesotareformer.com/2026/02/25/a...

I hope this doesn’t make me lose my insurance

It’s day 82 of the ICE occupation of MN.

Although ICE is less present in our central cities, many of our neighbors haven’t been able to work in months.

If you want to raise rent DIRECTLY for an impacted family, adopt a rent!

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Just a quick update from the Twin Cities. (Please forgive the unsolicited message). THINGS ARE NOT BETTER IN MINNEAPOLIS. The media is mostly moving on, Trump is focused on other stuff, BUT NOTHING HAS CHANGED ON THE GROUND. More than 2,000 DHS thugs continue to roam the streets, abducting people 24/7, assaulting legal observers with impunity, and routinely denying 1st, 4th, and 5th amendment rights. Drones and helicopters are overhead every day. Hundreds and hundreds of terrified families have not left their homes since mid-December ... relying on the community to bring them food and help with rent and other necessities. (Those people are NOT violent drug cartel sex offending murderers, as DHS would tell you. Most are legal residents or citizens.) If anything, things have just become more stressful and intractable (think trench warfare as a suitable metaphor): The resistance is better organized and numerous, but DHS has become more clever and better at disguise... and the county sheriff's office is increasingly supporting them . Do not let anyone tell you that Homans (the new person in charge of the occupation) is making anything better. Do not let anyone tell you that 700 ICE agents leaving the city has made much of a difference; the remaining force (again, ~2,000) is still larger than the entire city's police force (which is legally unable to do anything). Please call your congressional reps ... especially if there is any chance the administration might listen to them.

A desperate plea sent to me by a Minneapolis resident who's been on the front lines since the beginning of the ICE occupation:

NSA detected phone call between foreign intelligence and a person close to Trump Whistleblower says that Tulsi Gabbard blocked agency from sharing report and delivered it to White House chief of staff

SCOOP: The NSA detected a phone call between foreign intelligence and a person close to Trump last spring.

Whistleblower says that Tulsi Gabbard blocked agency from sharing report and delivered it to White House chief of staff.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Predicting that this week we’ll hear more conciliatory words from the Administration regarding Minnesota (since they’re starting to realize that ICE has become politically toxic) but everyone outside of Minnesota needs to know that nothing on the ground has changed.

Not that you asked, but here's a thread of intriguing (real!) food facts to amuse/bore your friends and family.

Great for gatherings when you need to change the subject!

A digital pencil sketch of four black capped chickadees surrounding some handwritten text that reads “You don’t have to do it alone.”

Just a little scrabbledy sketch to keep spirits up.

I also learned today that a group of chickadees is called a ‘banditry’ and how cute is that?

Just a quarter?

View from above

It's true, there are a zillion books in this thing, too. I own half of them and it was still a good deal.

Look. I'm sure your city is . . . perfectly nice. But do your rocks and fields and frozen lakes cry out for justice as prettily as ours?

A stylized ruffed grouse bird spreads its wings on this riff on the Rebel Alliance logo. The bird is in the center of a circle, painted in shades of red, green, yellow, and black, in the style of a Pennsylvania Dutch folk painting. A small eight pointed star is to the right of the bird’s head. Under the logo is the text “Pennsylvania Civil Resistance”

I love this spectacular Ruffed Grouse Pennsylvania resistance bird by Jen Rand ( @jenrand.bsky.social ). The star is a nod to the Quaker tenet of nonviolence, and the style harks back to PA Dutch folk art.

Here's how to identify some crowd control munitions, canisters of which federal agents have left on the ground after deploying them against people in Minnesota. bit.ly/3YWp1jE

Graphic by Mark Boswell/The Minnesota Star Tribune

If you're not from Minnesota: Please study our geography a little bit! When George Floyd was killed, folks thought there were miles between Minneapolis and St. Paul and St. Paul was in Wisconsin. Now Portland and 34th seems "suburban" Please look things up about our state before making things up!

Prospect Park, Home 2 Suites by Hilton. Protesters banging trash cans, pots and pans. Broke a window. Looked like one MPD officer casually holding them at bay in lobby until a Federal Bureau of Prisons team arrived and let loose with gas, smoke, less lethal rounds.

Anyone got snow pics? We just got cold no snow so I want to see yours

They are executing unarmed people in the streets for trying to protect their neighbors with the full support of the federal government.

Yall outside of MN need to know that observers are STILL out protecting their neighbors. Right now. They know the news and they’re still out there.

At this point with holding all labor in service of ICE, access to bathrooms, access to restaurants, access to lodging seems to be the minimum we must do

Witnesses are being taken to Whipple.

From a lawyer friend: “They’re trying to keep local PD and BCA from getting statements and confiscating any phones with video.”

Live: Man shot and killed by federal agents in south Minneapolis this morning, police chief says A video appears to shows federal agents wrestling a man to the ground then shooting him.

The Star Tribune reports that federal agents "attempted to order local police from the scene" where a man was shot and killed by feds this morning, but Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara refused and "instructed his officers to preserve the scene."

I just don’t understand how people are so cruel as to kidnap people including children and when their neighbors defend their neighbors they shoot them violently.

ICE thinks Minnesotans will eventually give up, it’s like they’re unfamiliar with Vikings fandom

Another fact that people outside of MN might find hard to believe:

I cannot participate in any kind of observation of ice activities because they will put me in a database, and follow me when I make deliveries of supplies to vulnerable people, so they can abduct them.

Disabled son of ICE detainee dies after 30 days of hospitalization It had been months since Wael Tarabishi seen his father. The family is calling on ICE to release Maher Tarabishi so he may attend his son's funeral.

In October, ICE grabbed Maher Tarabishi.

He was a 24/7 caregiver for his disabled son Wael.

At the time of Maher’s detention, disability advocates warned that taking away Wael’s caregiver put his life at risk.

Wael died on Friday at age 30.

ICE caused his death.

They didn’t get to say goodbye.

“fuck ICE”
“and also with you”

The area in a winter storm warning is remarkable; the size of the area that'll see warning-level winter wx (e.g., heavy snow, sleet, and/or freezing rain) is astonishing. As much as snow, sleet, and freezing rain will cause massive disruption (travel, power, etc.), the SIZE of this is just as wild.

Racket is wonderful and all of Minneapolis’s newfound friends around the globe can take this chance to read up