THIS WEEK'S EPISODE:

Episode #1044: No Philosphy
First Broadcast: 2/2/26
In one of the worst instances of déjà vu in recent memory, we find ourselves yet again talking about federal agents killing an American citizen in Minneapolis, again seemingly for the "crime" of non-violently observing Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) officers, for the second time in less than three weeks. On the morning of Saturday, January 24, 2026, Alex Pretti, a nurse who worked in the Intensive Care Unit at a Veteran's Administration hospital in Minnesota, was observing the activity of masked ICE and Customs & Border Patrol (CBP) agents on the street in South Minneapolis when he witnessed one agent shove a woman hard enough to knock her off balance, causing her to fall into Pretti's arms. As Pretti tried to support her, the agent who shoved the woman then shoved Pretti, and began spraying him in the face repeatedly with what appeared to be a chemical irritant, like pepper spray. At that point, several federal agents--at least six--swarmed onto Pretti, simultaneously holding him down on the ground and punching him, with at least one agent appearing to remove a firearm from Pretti's person--a handgun that Pretti was legally permitted to carry, and which he was neither holding nor pointing at anyone during this interaction. After the one agent disarmed him, one or more agents shot Pretti, firing as many as ten shots at him, after which they all quickly backed away from his body, without even attempting to give him any kind of first aid. A pediatrician who witnessed the shooting and whom agents initially refused to let offer any medical assistance to Pretti before they relented, said in a sworn statement that "Checking for a pulse and administering CPR is standard practice. Instead of doing either of those things, the ICE agents appeared to be counting his bullet wounds." Pretti died on the ground, and, like they did with Renee Good, federal officials quickly went to work portraying Pretti in the worst terms imaginable, labeling him a "would-be assassin" who "brandished a weapon" and was out to "massacre law enforcement"; and, also just like with Renee Good, all those claims were thoroughly disproven by multiple videos taken by other bystanders, which collectively appeared to show Pretti as the victim of a cold-blooded murder by ICE & CPB agents. People throughout the country were outraged at this latest killing, seeing it as a direct assault on press freedom (and, to me, not unlike the shooting out of journalists' eyes during the George Floyd protests in 2020), an attack on gun owners, and yet another example of how the various agents at the Department of Homeland Security are acting like an unaccountable occupying army wherever they go, a secret police force with no clear agenda other than to terrorize the populace. In the wake of this and many other events, when Democrats and even some Republicans might be briefly united in their criticism of the federal government's disregard for human life, "Abolish ICE" might be the sanest response. Will anything be done to stop ICE from acting like the Gestapo? Will the Democrats do anything if they win the 2026 midterms? I don't know the answers to either of those questions, but something needs to change soon, because people can only take so much before they reach a breaking point. P.S.: Remember: You have the right to record the police!

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last updated February 1, 2026
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