Good morning. I’m Corrine Straight, and this is AlterNet America.
The White House posted a photo of Trump and the King of England captioned “TWO KINGS.” The ICE agent who shot and killed Renee Good in Minneapolis has been transferred to a new state with a full caseload and zero consequences. A Secret Service agent who took a bullet at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner may have been shot by friendly fire. And the Justice Department has fired the lawyers who protected your vote.
Before we get into it: We don’t have a network that needs White House access to survive. We don’t have a parent company doing quiet deals with the administration. We don’t have advertisers who’d rather you look away. What we have is readers. Right now, that’s the only position in American media that can’t be pressured into silence. A paid subscription to AlterNet America is a direct bet that independent journalism survives this moment. If you haven’t yet, please consider upgrading yours today.
Now, let’s go.
The Founding Fathers Are Rolling in Their Graves
King Charles III arrived in Washington this week for the first state visit by a reigning British monarch in nearly twenty years. The White House marked the occasion by posting an official photo of Trump and Charles side by side, captioned “TWO KINGS.”
Trump has been warming up to the comparison for a while. After winning a legal battle over New York City’s congestion pricing program, he posted “LONG LIVE THE KING” on Truth Social. When challenged on it, he insists he’s not a king, because a king “wouldn’t have to call up Mike Johnson and say, ‘Fellas, you’ve got to pull this off.’”
Charles, for his part, showed up to Congress and spent his address making the case for everything Trump opposes. Charles cited the Magna Carta — the foundational legal document limiting executive power — noting it appears in at least 160 Supreme Court cases, a line that drew an immediate standing ovation from Democrats.
He praised NATO, which Trump has threatened to leave. He invoked Lincoln. He talked about the rule of law. It was a very polite, very pointed speech from a man who has spent his entire life learning how to say things without technically saying them.
After a Daily Mail report surfaced suggesting Trump and Charles may share a common ancestor, Trump posted it to Truth Social with the note: “I’ve always wanted to live in Buckingham Palace!!!” This is the most honest thing he’s ever said.
The Agent Who Killed Renee Good Got a Cushy New Job
On January 7th, Renee Good had just dropped her six-year-old off at school and was driving home in Minneapolis when she encountered ICE agents on a residential street. She was 37 years old, a mother of three, a poet and a writer.
ICE agent Jonathan Ross fired three shots. Good was hit in the arm, head, and chest and died. Footage captured Ross calling her a “fucking bitch” in the moments before he pulled the trigger.
Ross was placed on three days of administrative leave. He has since been transferred to a different state, where he has returned to work in both an administrative and investigative capacity, facing virtually no consequences.
There was no termination. There was no criminal referral. There were seventy-two hours of leave.
DHS officials say ICE’s internal affairs division cannot conduct its own investigation until the FBI probe concludes, a structure that allows accountability to be deferred indefinitely. The FBI’s investigation has been marked by delays and a series of moves that have not exactly accelerated the timeline.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department has declined to open a civil rights investigation into Good’s killing and instead moved to investigate Good’s widow.
Secret Service Agent Who Took a Bullet May Have Been Hit by Friendly Fire
The Secret Service agent wounded at Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner was likely shot by a colleague, not by the gunman. The White House has not released a “TWO SHOOTERS” post, but the day is young.
Cole Allen, a 31-year-old mechanical engineering graduate from Caltech, allegedly booked a hotel room at the Washington Hilton, packed a duffel bag with a shotgun, walked down ten flights of stairs to avoid security cameras, and sprinted toward the ballroom where the president and his cabinet were seated.
The agent fired five shots at Allen. None of them hit Allen.
Allen fell to the ground and was arrested. The agent was hit in his Kevlar vest. One of his colleagues is now suspected of having fired the shot that struck him.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche confirmed at a press briefing that Allen had fired at least once from his shotgun, but declined to discuss the ballistics further. “I’m not going to do that today,” he said. That was several days ago.
The president was evacuated safely. The suspect is in custody. The agent survived. More details will be released when the details are less embarrassing.
The Justice Department Fired the People Who Protected Your Vote
Since Trump took office, roughly 70 percent of the lawyers in the Civil Rights Division have been pushed out. The voting rights section, which previously had dozens of lawyers, now operates with bare-bones staff.
The section chief and five senior managers have since been reassigned to a complaint adjudication office handling inter-employee grievances. Active voting rights cases were ordered dismissed with no explanation.
Harmeet Dhillon, the woman Trump installed to run what remains of the division, spent her career before this job filing more than ten unsuccessful lawsuits challenging California’s voting programs and arguing that election fraud cost Trump the 2020 election.
Her new priorities for the division include “Keeping Men out of Women’s Sports” and “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling.” The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is not on the list.
The DOJ has since withdrawn election-related lawsuits in Georgia, Virginia, and Alabama, canceled police oversight agreements reached after the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and declined to investigate the killing of Renee Good while opening an investigation into her widow instead.
The midterms are in November. Nobody currently employed at the Justice Department’s voting rights section has ever won a voting rights case, because winning voting rights cases was not what they were hired to do.
The Only Billionaire-Free News You’re Getting Today
The business model that kept journalism independent is gone. What replaced it is billionaires, access deals, and quiet understandings about which stories don’t run. The networks are getting phone calls they don’t talk about. The newspapers have new owners who play golf with the people we’re writing about. The FCC is making examples of outlets that don’t play ball.
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POSITIVE STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:
Trump Approval Rating Plummets to Record Lows With Men and White Voters. Trump’s approval rating has fallen to record lows, with men at 37 percent and white voters at 44 percent. Both groups have historically been his most reliable supporters. Overall, his net approval has sunk to minus-30, with Americans across demographics citing the Iran war, fuel costs, and grocery prices as reasons for their frustration. The base is not holding.
Judge thwarts Trump administration’s attempt to access Arizona voter rolls. A federal judge in Arizona dismissed the Justice Department’s lawsuit seeking unredacted voter rolls from the state, ruling that the Civil Rights Act does not authorize the demand. This is now the sixth federal court to reach the same conclusion. The administration is zero for six in court. The judge, a Trump appointee, dismissed the case with prejudice, meaning the Justice Department cannot refile.
James Comey’s Daughter Lands Major Win in Lawsuit Against Trump. A federal judge has rejected the Justice Department’s attempt to dismiss former U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey’s lawsuit challenging her firing, which she alleges happened solely because her father is James Comey. The termination notice cited Article 2 of the Constitution and nothing else, which is the legal equivalent of writing “because I said so” on a pink slip.
Kids are actually reading books again due to cell phone bans. Since Texas banned cellphones in public schools, Dallas ISD has seen library book checkouts jump by more than 200,000 compared to last year, a 24 percent increase. At Hillcrest High School alone, checkouts went from roughly 500 books in the first nine weeks of last year to about 1,800 this year. Turns out children will read if you take away the alternative. Nobody tell the book banners.
