Category: Politics

Kristi Noem justified ICE agents killing Alex Pretti in Minneapolis by saying, “I don’t know of any peaceful protester that shows up with a gun and ammunition rather than a sign.” Except Pretti had a concealed carry permit—fully legal in Minnesota, and he didn’t accost anyone. He certainly didn’t brandish his weapon. This is the same Noem who told the NRA in 2023 that Biden wanted their guns because “it will make it easier for them to infringe on all of our other rights.” The same Noem who signed permitless carry as her first act as South Dakota governor. Gun Owners of America’s federal affairs director responded: “Oh I’m Antifa now?” Thirty years of “from my cold dead hands” to “well he shouldn’t have been carrying” in seventy-two hours.

Trump supporters celebrating executive power expansions in 2025 built machinery they assumed only cuts one direction. But every precedent Trump established—IEEPA emergency declarations for tariffs, military deployments to American cities, targeting political opponents through DOJ investigations, Supreme Court restrictions on nationwide injunctions—becomes available to the next president. This article maps how a Democratic administration could use Trump’s 2025 precedents to systematically restrict Second Amendment rights without passing a single law. Emergency gun violence declarations. ATF enforcement through executive authority. Military deployment to enforce restrictions. Legal challenges limited to named plaintiffs under Trump v. CASA. This isn’t speculation. It’s documentation. Every claim is verified with specific dates, court cases, and executive orders from 2025. The infrastructure is already operational. The precedents already exist. Executive power has no partisan alignment—only temporal alignment with whoever holds office next.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

On January 3, 2026, the Trump administration launched airstrikes across Venezuela, captured President Nicolás Maduro, and announced the U.S. would ‘run’ the country—all without congressional authorization. Since then, the administration has offered nine distinct legal justifications: law enforcement action, self-defense against drug trafficking, the Panama precedent, treaty obligations, and more. Some contradict each other. Some contradict the administration’s own prior statements. This analysis examines each claim against actual law and expert consensus. Nine justifications. Nine problems.

I’ve heard this particular criticism from well-meaning individuals more times than I can count: It wasn’t the content of my September 12th post that was my treason, it was the timing. I “capitalized on tragedy.” I was “tone deaf.” I was “reckless” and “irrational.” It was “deranged ranting.” Hold that thought for a minute and let’s rewind to two weeks before Charlie Kirk was assassinated. On August 30th I posted three checked boxes: they’re stealing our jobs, they’re eating our pets, they’re raping our daughters. The escalating pattern is unmistakable to anyone who’s studied how dehumanizing rhetoric can lead to atrocity. Fast forward to the 48 hours following Kirk’s assassination. What we were witnessing wasn’t grief. It was rage fueled by a false narrative that half the country wanted conservative blood—a narrative built and amplified before the shooter was even identified. I watched it unfold in real-time, and I recognized it for what it was: mass hysteria threatening to justify preemptive violence against people like my neighbors, my coworkers, my family. So I committed an unforgivable sin. I stood up and said something.

A reader wrote to tell me I have “selective memory” about why my publication contract was canceled. That I “grouped all of the right with racist violence.” That I ignored left-wing transgressions and Trump comparisons to previous presidents. That I alienated “so many people who loved you” because I’m “blinded by hate.” Every single claim is demonstrably false and contradicted by timestamped public records. But that line about “so many people who loved you” deserves special attention. Let’s examine what that “love” actually looked like when I documented the difference between calling someone a racist and saying they’re poisoning our country’s blood. When I distinguished moral judgment from eliminationist rhetoric. When I refused to stay silent about replacement theory targeting my family. Strap in. It gets spicy.