Though the current project started as a series of posts charting my grief journey after the death of my mother, I am no longer actively grieving. Now, the blog charts a conversation in living, mainly whatever I want it to be. This is an activity that goes well with the theme of this blog (updated 2018). The Sense of Doubt blog is dedicated to my motto: EMBRACE UNCERTAINTY. I promote questioning everything because just when I think I know something is concrete, I find out that it’s not.
Hey, Mom! The Explanation.
Here's the permanent dedicated link to my first Hey, Mom! post and the explanation of the feature it contains.
A Sense of Doubt blog post #4003 - AWESOME: Bruce Springsteen Raises His Music in Resistance Against ICE and the Trump Administration
Not Comic Book Sunday, but I am still in quick share mode. Last day of the Winter quarter at Walden Graduate School.
Bruce Springsteen made a song for the people of Minnesota following the MURDERS of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
Of course, the Trump administration doesn't like it but has to comment because they cannot take criticism let alone open resistance.
The actions of this administration and their thugs are brutal, cruel, and inhuman.
This is because they do not see immigrants -- illegal or otherwise -- as humans. And they do not consider those who resist to be "real" Americans.
And then Trump, who cannot hold back lack a mature adult or someone with the position of power he has and respect for the office he holds from spewing the most vile, offensive, insulting hate filled rants about people who oppose him and the actions of his cronies.
It's disgusting, vile, and despicable.
And then there's SPRINGSTEEEN!!
I wonder if he has more followers on social media than Trump?
I am disappointed in myself that I posted about Alex Pretti but have not yet made my post about Renee Good. When I do, I will use these sources:
Bruce Springsteen's new protest song is getting rave reviews from music lovers and activists alike, but the White House is definitively not a fan.
Springsteen released the song, titled "Streets of Minneapolis," on Wednesday, which boasts lyrics condemning the presence and actions of federal immigration enforcement in the city, and calls out "King Trump" and his "federal thugs." The song also narrates the killings of Renee Macklin Good and Alex Pretti, who were fatally shot by federal agents this month.
"I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis," the 76-year-old rocker wrote on Bluesky alongside the single's release. "It's dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good. Stay free."
Saturday was the same day immigration agents killed Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, during a confrontation. Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was killed by an ICE agent on Jan. 7, with both occurrences going viral on social media.
Their deaths are the latest to gain national attention as at least 32 people died in ICE custody in 2025 amid Donald Trump's aggressive immigration crackdown, making it the agency's deadliest year in two decades, per The American Prospect.
In response to Springsteen's song making headlines, Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, told Entertainment Weekly in a statement that "the Trump administration is focused on encouraging state and local Democrats to work with federal law enforcement officers on removing dangerous criminal illegal aliens from their communities — not random songs with irrelevant opinions and inaccurate information."
Jackson added, "The media should cover how Democrats have refused to work with the Administration, and instead, opted to provide sanctuary for these criminal illegals."
Springsteen released a new video for the song, directed by longtime collaborator Thom Zimny, on Thursday. The video features scenes on the ground in Minneapolis and studio performance shots of Springsteen. Pam Springsteen, the Boss' sister, is credited with production footage along with Zimny.
Springsteen, who has written politically driven music for decades, has been heavily critical of Trump since he was first elected in 2016. Their spat was renewed with Trump's second term, with the "Dancing in the Dark" singer dubbing the current administration as "corrupt, incompetent, and treasonous" during the opening night of his Land of Hope and Dreams tour in Manchester last May.
"Tonight, we ask all who believe in democracy and the best of our American experience to rise with us," Springsteen told his crowd at the time. "Raise your voices against the authoritarianism, and let freedom ring."
The president fired back at the musician a day later on Truth Social, calling him a "dried-out 'prune' of a rocker" and stating that he "never liked him, never liked his music, or his Radical Left Politics."
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2602.01 - 10:10
- Days ago: MOM = 3866 days ago & DAD = 522 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
A Sense of Doubt blog post #3998 - MURDER - Call it what it is - Veteran ICU RN Alex Pretti MURDERED by ICE Agent in Minneapolis
We need to call it what it is.
Alex Pretti was murdered.
Renee Good was murdered.
Wael Tarabishi was murdered when ICE arrested his father, Wael's sole care giver, and then refused to let him (father Maher Tarabishi) attend his son's funeral.
The actions of the Trump administration and its ICE gestapo are cruel and unhuman. They literally dehumanize people constantly with their racist and hateful language.
They are behaving exactly like Nazis.
It's time for rational people who care about other humans and believe in American democracy to stand up and keep standing up to object, to resist, and to fight.
In Trump's own words: "Fight like Hell or you're not going to have a country anymore."
This is not even thinly veiled racism. It's pretty outright and directly racism.
It must stop.
I had been planning a post about Renee Good, which I had not finished yet, when someone else was murdered by ICE agents.
There's been three murders in Minneapolis since January First, two of them were by federal agents.
The material below from The New York Times breaks down video evidence of Pretti's murder proving that the Trump administration, especially DHS, is LYING about what happened, lies that are easily disproven by what we can see with our own eyes.
These lies about Renee Good's murder and her alleged use of a car as a lethal weapon were also disproven by the video footage.
And both of these people murdered were white.
White people opposing the brutal, racist, cruel, and inhuman tactics of the gestapo-like ICE agents against their neighbors and community.
Federal agents shot and killed a 37-year-old Minneapolis resident, Alex Jeffrey Pretti, at about 9 a.m. Central time on Saturday morning. A video shared with The New York Times by a witness and her lawyer, as well as other video footage posted on social media, documents the violent scene, where agents appear to fire at least 10 shots in a span of five seconds.
The footage seems to contradict the Department of Homeland Security’s account of the encounter, which the agency said began after an individual armed with a handgun approached the federal agents with the intent to “massacre” them.
48 seconds before shooting
Mr. Pretti filming
the scene
Immigration
agent
Civilian with
orange backpack
Civilian in
brown coat
Still from video shared with The Times.The New York Times
Videos show a small group of civilians standing in the middle of a street where a person was detained on the ground; the civilians are speaking to federal agents. Mr. Pretti appears to be filming the scene, and he walks closer to the federal agents while holding his phone.
Then an agent shoves two civilians from one side of the street to the other, pushing them toward a white S.U.V.
28 seconds before
Mr. Pretti
Agent pushing
civilian to
the ground
Civilian with
orange backpack
Civilian in
brown coat
White S.U.V.
Still from video shared with The Times.The New York Times
For a second time, the agent pushes the civilian with the orange backpack. The civilian falls to the ground near the white S.U.V.
25 seconds before
Mr. Pretti
holding a phone
Agent pepper-sprays
the group
Civilian with
orange backpack
Civilian in
brown coat
Still from video by Philophon via Reddit.The New York Times
Mr. Pretti tries to put himself between the D.H.S. agent and the two civilians. Footage shows the same agent squirting pepper spray in the direction of Mr. Pretti’s face. (This agent will later fire shots at Mr. Pretti.)
Mr. Pretti is holding his phone in one hand, and he holds his other hand up to shield himself from the spray.
23 seconds before
Mr. Pretti
Agent
Civilian with
orange backpack
Civilian in
brown coat
Still from video shared with The Times.The New York Times
Mr. Pretti appears to be trying to help the civilian with the orange backpack stand back up as the agent continues to pepper-spray the group.
17 seconds before
1
Mr. Pretti
holding his phone
Still from video by witness shared with The Times.The New York Times
Several agents grab Mr. Pretti, who is still holding his phone. Additional agents approach and try to pin Mr. Pretti to the ground.
11 seconds before
Mr. Pretti is restrained
by multiple agents
Agent in
gray coat
Still from video by Philophon via Reddit.The New York Times
Mr. Pretti is surrounded by a group of seven agents, some of whom have wrestled him to the ground. One of the agents, who wears a gray coat, gets closer to Mr. Pretti. The agent’s hands are empty as he reaches for Mr. Pretti, while the other agents hold Mr. Pretti down on his knees. At the same time, another agent strikes Mr. Pretti repeatedly with a pepper spray canister.
1 second before
Agent in gray
coat appears to
remove a gun
Agent unholsters
his weapon
Civilian in
brown coat
Civilian with
orange backpack
Still from video shared with The Times.The New York Times
An eighth agent joins the group. The agent in the gray coat appears to pull a gun from near Mr. Pretti’s right hip. The agent then begins to move away from the skirmish with the weapon.
At the same time, another agent unholsters his firearm and points it at Mr. Pretti’s back.
First shot fired
Agent in gray coat
removes gun
from skirmish
Still from witness video via Associated Press.The New York Times
The agent in the gray coat removes the weapon from the scene. It matches the profile of a gun that D.H.S. says belonged to Mr. Pretti. Then, while Mr. Pretti is on his knees and restrained, the agent standing directly above him appears to fire one shot at Mr. Pretti at close range. He immediately fires three additional shots.
The diagram below shows the position of the agents, Mr. Pretti and other civilians at this moment.
Sidewalk
Agent who
shoots first
Agent who
shoots second
Two agents kneeling
next to Pretti
White
S.U.V. seen
in videos
Agent
removing gun
Witness
Two civilians who had been pushed by agents
Lamppost
Tree
Pretti on ground
Nicollet Avenue
The New York Times
Additional shots fired
Mr. Pretti lying
on the ground
Two agents
who fired shots
Still from video shared with The Times.The New York Times
Several agents have moved away from Mr. Pretti, who has collapsed. Another agent — the same one who shoved the civilians into the street and pepper-sprayed Mr. Pretti — unholsters his gun and fires at Mr. Pretti. The first agent also fires additional shots. Together, they fire six more shots at Mr. Pretti while he lies motionless on the ground.
At least 10 shots appear to have been fired within five seconds. By the moment of the 10th shot, the agent who moved away with the weapon has crossed the street.
Mr. Pretti is the second person to be shot and killed by a federal agent in Minnesota in recent weeks. Footage of Mr. Pretti’s death in Minneapolis was posted on social media almost immediately after the shooting.
The Homeland Security Department said that the episode began after a man approached Border Patrol agents with a handgun, and that an agent fired “defensive shots.” Another encounter in Minneapolis this month, in which a Venezuelan man was shot in the leg by a federal agent, was also characterized as “defensive” by the department.
Gov. Tim Walz, Democrat of Minnesota, disputed the claims by federal officials that Mr. Pretti had posed a threat. He accused “the most powerful people in the federal government” of “spinning stories and putting up pictures.”
Chief Brian O’Hara of the Minneapolis Police Department said that Mr. Pretti was an American citizen with no criminal record and that he had a valid firearms permit. Under Minnesota law, citizens can legally carry a handgun in public, either openly or concealed, if they have a permit.
As with the fatal shooting of Renee Good, local and state authorities in Minnesota say that they have been impeded by D.H.S. from investigating the killing of Mr. Pretti, and that they have been cut off from access to crucial evidence and facts.
Large crowds of protesters gathered throughout Saturday at the site of Mr. Pretti’s shooting. On Sunday afternoon, around 1,000 people packed Government Plaza in downtown Minneapolis to protest the presence of federal agents in the city and to call for justice for Ms. Good and Mr. Pretti.
New Video Analysis Reveals Flawed and Fatal Decisions in Shooting of Pretti
A frame-by-frame assessment of actions by Alex Pretti and the two officers who fired 10 times shows how lethal force came to be used against a target who didn’t pose a threat.
When federal agents shot and killed 37-year-old Alex Pretti in Minneapolis on Saturday, officials said he approached agents with a handgun, intending to massacre them. “An individual approached U.S. Border Patrol agents with a 9 mm semiautomatic handgun.” “This looks like a situation where an individual arrived at the scene to inflict maximum damage on individuals and to kill law enforcement.” But a Times analysis of video footage from the scene in the moments when two officers opened fire, clearly contradict federal government statements. Pretti does not appear to pose a threat to agents. In fact, at several critical junctures, he is outnumbered and under their control. Here are the key moments that reveal what happened. We see Pretti walking about, filming a group of protesters who are speaking with a federal agent. He’s holding a cell phone in one hand. The other hand is empty. It’s just over 30 seconds before the shooting when a protester is pushed to the ground. Pretti steps between her and the agent who’d shoved her, briefly putting his hand on the agent’s waist. The agent pepper-sprays Pretti’s face. We can see Pretti is still holding his phone in one hand while holding his other hand up to protect himself against the spray. Contrary to statements by federal officials, he’s made no threatening movements towards agents. Pretti, who had a firearms permit, carries a gun holstered on his right hip, but he doesn’t reach for it. And it appears agents are unaware the gun is even there. He reaches toward the protester, apparently trying to help her up, while agents begin grabbing him from behind. He tries to pull away, and again he makes no threatening movements towards the agents. But agents pull him backwards and force him to the ground. Then shots ring out. [gunfire] Now we’ll slow things down, so each moment is clear. Here is Pretti. Several agents are restraining him. And this is the Border Patrol agent who will shoot him first. This appears to be when agents first notice that Pretti is carrying a firearm and yell that he has a gun. Watching the same moment from a different angle, the agent who first pepper-sprayed Pretti beats him several times with the spray canister. We can see that both of Pretti’s arms are pinned down by his head. This agent in gray reaches to remove Pretti’s weapon from his hip, as this agent unholsters his gun, nudges the agent in gray out of the way and fires. [gunfire] Let’s rewind and focus on the agent who shoots first. Just seconds before he fired, he was facing away from Pretti and focusing on an entirely different situation as he tries to spray a nearby woman with an irritant. The spray appears to malfunction, and the agent turns as he adjusts it. That’s when someone yells that Pretti has a gun. And around five seconds after fully turning his attention toward Pretti, the agent draws his weapon and shoots. [gunfire] His arm visibly recoils at the first shot. The firearm has clearly been removed from the scrum when the first shots are fired toward Pretti at close range. [gunfire] The officer who disarmed Pretti can be seen reacting to the sound of the first shot, looking back toward the skirmish. The shooter was standing behind Pretti and not under direct threat, contradicting statements from Homeland Security officials that he fired defensive shots. He also has a vantage point to see the gun pulled from the scene, but it’s unclear if he did and whether he thought a weapon was still on Pretti. He then fires three more shots from behind Pretti, whose arms are down as he appears to brace himself against the pavement. In one hand, he still holds his phone, and in his other, his glasses. The agent in gray, who removed Pretti’s gun, carries it across the street. Pretti is disarmed and falling to the ground. But the agent who first pepper-sprayed Pretti and later beat him with a canister, also pulls out his gun. From a distance, despite the fact that Pretti is lying motionless on the ground, these two agents fire six more shots. Neither is under threat. [screaming] [gunfire, screaming] In total, the agents fire 10 shots in five seconds. After the shooting, an agent kneeling next to Pretti’s body asks where the gun is — — showing that not all of the officers seem to know the weapon had been removed. Agents appear to begin giving medical aid. About 31 seconds elapsed from the time agents first physically engaged Pretti to the moment the last shot was fired.
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2601.27 - 10:10
- Days ago: MOM = 3861 days ago & DAD = 516 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
