The guy with the syringe is what you’d expect: a fan of the ratbag.

The man who sprayed an unknown substance on Democratic U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar at a town hall in Minneapolis has a criminal history and has made online posts supportive of President Donald Trump.

Anthony Kazmierczak, 55, was convicted of felony auto theft in 1989, has been arrested multiple times for driving under the influence, and has had numerous traffic citations, Minnesota court records show.

The kind of person who doesn’t give a shit about other people. Naturally.

In social media posts, Kazmierczak described himself as a former network engineer who lives in Minneapolis. Among other things, he made comments critical of former President Joe Biden

The Bulwark:

This White House has a playbook for scandal: Always double down, never apologize, and above all attack, attack, attack. So it was nothing less than shocking yesterday when the administration—after two days of utterly shameless lies about the killing of Alex Pretti—slammed on the brakes in an attempt to pivot to a more normie-palatable [acceptable] narrative.

Out, suddenly, were statements like Stephen Miller’s, who called Pretti “a domestic terrorist” who “tried to assassinate federal law enforcement,” or Kristi Noem’s, who called it a “fact” that Pretti had “committed an act of domestic terrorism.” No longer, apparently, was it the Department of Homeland Security’s position, as the official DHS account tweeted Saturday and Border Patrol mook Greg

Let’s pick a fight with Denmark.

Staff at the US embassy in Copenhagen have removed 44 flags decorated with the names of Danish soldiers that were killed in Afghanistan, put up after US President Donald Trump’s recent criticism of allied countries’ military contributions.

As yet unidentified activists put up the flags on Tuesday but they were removed later the same day by an embassy security guard, according to Danish media TV2,

In an interview with Fox News last week, Trump said that allied soldiers in Afghanistan, “stayed a little back, a little off the front lines” – causing pushback from European capitals.

Trump himself, by the way, stayed more than a little back. Trump stayed all the way back. Way way way back.

Copenhagen’s

One of those times when you compose the next sentence before reading it.

The sentence before the next sentence:

Holed up in the White House over the weekend, with temperatures dropping and a major snowstorm on its way, Mr. Trump expressed concern about the killing to aides and allies.

The next sentence you compose in your head:

You mean Trump pitched a fit about the public reaction to the killing and how everybody else had to fix it because the reaction was bad for him.

The next sentence the NY Times wrote:

But his frustrations were more about the coverage of the events rather than the incident itself, according to people familiar with the dynamic.

Yeah no shit. Of … Read the rest

Trump and consequences:

Congresswoman Ilhan Omar was sprayed with an unidentified substance by a man with a syringe on Tuesday as she gave her first in-person town hall of the year in Minneapolis, during which she called for ICE to be abolished “for good” and DHS secretary Kristi Noem to resign.

Omar had only been speaking for a few minutes when a man in the audience got up and began to shout, while spraying her with the liquid. People at the meeting said the liquid had an acidic smell.

The good news is that it was a small amount.

Some, such as Minneapolis council member LaTrisha Vetaw, pleaded with Omar to end the town hall early to get

Nah.

pic.twitter.com/v8rHPl2rJT

— Philip Glass (@philipglass) January 27, 2026

… Read the rest

This this this! If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a billion times.

Received a ridiculous response from the BBC to my complaint about its claim that Jammie Booker was disqualified from a women's competition because he's trans

'We're happy it was accurate' – not going to wash

Back you go pic.twitter.com/AknyyufiXh

— Cath Leng (@leng_cath) January 27, 2026

“Booker was not disqualified for being transgender. This is inaccurate. Disqualification for this reason would be illegal. Booker was disqualified for being male.”

THAT. They do it every damn time, and it’s sneaky, and it’s a lie.

Back you go indeed.… Read the rest

Squeeeeeeeeeeeee another new way to insult women, how exciting!!

Just imagine a tweet shouting about a white person who “channels” some of the most iconic poses of Black people throughout history. Imagine a tweet shouting about Sean Hannity as he channels Thurgood Marshall, Paul Robson, Fanny Lou Hamer, Ruby Bridges, Rosa Parks.

Go choke on your own toffees, Rainbow.… Read the rest

Shut her up.

SNP ministers tried to “silence and intimidate” a female prisoner who had been traumatised by sharing a jail with biological men by sending her testimony to police, a court has been told.

Aidan O’Neill KC, who is representing For Women Scotland (FWS) in its latest legal battle with the Scottish government, argued that ministers were in contempt of court by sending a draft of the woman’s written evidence to Police Scotland without her or the court’s permission.

The devolved government, which is fighting in court to continue to allow biological men who identify as women to remain in women’s prisons, also urged Lady Ross KC on Tuesday not to accept the sworn affidavit, calling it “irrelevant”

Expert in what?

Expert says trans children’s rights are not being respected

Expert in what field exactly?

The reporter, one James MacEnany, Education Specialist, fails to say.

Next we get photo caption:

Expert academic says the rights of trans children in Scotland are not being respected 

Then we get the first two paragraphs:

“It is a difficult time to be doing any kind of research on trans or queer or even feminist topics, so I’m finding that I need to be quite cautious about media coverage.”

This is the view of Dr Ruth Pearce, an expert and researcher at the University of Glasgow.

Expert expert expert, we get it, but expert in what field?

We are not told. We … Read the rest

It’s stuff the genie back in the bottle time in Trumpolandia.

“Chief Gregory Bovino has NOT been relieved of his duties,” the DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said, pointing to earlier comments from the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, praising Bovino as a “key part of the president’s team and a great American”.

Leavitt spent Monday’s press briefing walking back initial claims made by senior administration officials about Pretti. Stephen Miller, the deputy chief of staff, called the victim “a domestic terrorist who tried to assassinate law enforcement”, and Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, accused him of perpetrating “the definition of domestic terrorism” – characterizations that have been undercut by video footage that showed Pretti getting

Bovino is out.

Gregory Bovino has been removed from his role as Border Patrol “commander at large” and will return to his former job in El Centro, California, where he is expected to retire soon, according to a DHS official and two people with knowledge of the change.

Bovino’s sudden demotion is the clearest sign yet that the Trump administration is reconsidering its most aggressive tactics after the killing Saturday of 37-year-old Alex Pretti by Border Patrol agents under Bovino’s command.

It turns out murdering a veterans’ hospital nurse is not all that popular.

Earlier today, President Trump appeared to signal in a series of social-media posts a tactical shift in the administration’s mass-deportation campaign. Trump wrote that he

It turns out the border patrollers don’t like it either.

Morale is “plummeting” among federal law enforcement officers tasked with carrying out the Trump administration’s aggressive anti-immigration operation, as they complained that [of] long hours, ambitious arrest quotas and hatred from the public, according to reports.

While officers at Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol, overseen by the Department of Homeland Security, said they supported the administration’s goal of deporting undocumented migrants, many of them have grown “disillusioned” with the tactics being implemented by leadership.

At the behest of the monstrosity in the Oval Office.

“You’re not addressing the problem by throwing a 500-pound gorilla into these inner cities,” Oscar Hagelsieb, a former immigration officer

Oh yes. I had indeed forgotten about them.

People in Minneapolis and the rest of the country may be depressed by casual murders at the hands of ICE but the Trump family is dressing up for a party.

Trump and first lady Melania Trump on Saturday night hosted a private screening of “Melania,” a new documentary about the first lady — drawing criticism from Democrats who questioned the president’s priorities hours after another fatal shooting in Minneapolis upended domestic politics and raised the possibility of a government shutdown.

So there’s a new documentary about Melania Trump.

Why?

What on earth is there to say? She’s a blank space.

The documentary “offers unprecedented access to the 20 days leading up to the 2025 Presidential Inauguration — through the

It takes so much lying and concealing and manipulation to keep this ideology going.

Some of you will have had this BBC response to complaints about its claim that Jammie Booker was ejected from America's Strongest Woman because he's 'trans'.

No. Send it right back. It was because he's a man.

Never mind 'disagreement': what the BBC said is simply not true. pic.twitter.com/YT8e5owMjS

— SEEN in Journalism (@JournalismSEEN) January 26, 2026

Yes we know you’re happy to do this manipulative wording, but your happiness is not the issue here. The issue is that saying “transgender” instead of “a man” carefully and with malice aforethought hides the fact that the man in question is a man. We know you’re happy to … Read the rest

The New Republic:

Trump is doubling down in Minnesota following the murder of nurse Alex Pretti by Border Patrol agents on Saturday by sending his immigration czar to the state. 

In a Truth Social post Monday morning, Trump announced that he is sending Tom Homan to the state “tonight,” calling him “tough but fair” and saying he “will report directly to me.” The president made no mention of Pretti’s death, and instead repeated exaggerated claims of fraud in the state and attacked Representative Ilhan Omar. 

Reporting directly to Trump is not going to make anything better. Trump would love it if ICE simply opened fire on every Somalian it could find.

Trump’s other Truth Social posts from the weekend

The bit where they say it and the bit where they take it back.

Etcetera Theatre: Women Writers Festival

Wait for it.

OPEN CALL: WOMEN WRITERS FESTIVAL 2026

We’re now programming Women Writers Festival 2026 — a month-long celebration of new writing by women and female-identifying writers, this March 2026 at The Etcetera Theatre, Camden.

Oh. So not a women writers festival then. “Female-identifying” is the opposite of women, so it’s a people writers festival – which is fine, but you shouldn’t call it a women writers festival.

This is about removing barriers and getting bold new work in front of audiences.

Not really. It’s about putting up new barriers to women. You can’t have it both ways. If … Read the rest

Respect law enforcement.

BREAKING: This is some 1930s Germany rhetoric by Greg Bovino.

He’s claiming that Alex Pretti was killed because he made the choice to listen to politicians and journalists who vilified ICE after they murdered Renee Good.

Bovino warns the media that there’s consequences if they… pic.twitter.com/SUxWsjIvCB

— Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) January 25, 2026

Bovino warns the media that there’s consequences if they say bad things about ICE. This is what happened in Germany. Don’t let it happen again in America.

Law enforcement is sacred. ICE is sacred. Nobody must ever criticize anything ICE does.… Read the rest

Trump tries to row it back.

After drawing a wave of backlash in Britain by saying U.K. forces stayed “off the front lines” in Afghanistan, President Donald Trump abruptly reversed course this weekend, praising British soldiers who fought in the U.S.-led war.

Oops. He forgot he likes to schmooze with the royals? Or he thought they would be fine with his lies and insults?

The retreat, according to a British newspaper, followed a low-key intervention by King Charles III, whose son Prince Harry served on the front lines as a helicopter pilot and lost friends in the fighting. The United Kingdom was second only to the United States in total number of soldiers killed in Afghanistan.

Low key as … Read the rest