the mellow tigger's musings

ICE is still in Minnesota and Minneapolis. If you had any doubt, based on the lack of coverage in national news, just see these Reddit posts showing photographs of trucks delivering loads of new vehicles to the Whipple building. March 9th (#1, I'm not sure where post #2 went, #3, #4, #5, #6, also #6, #7), March 5th (#1 and this video saying there were 3 more), March 2nd (#1 and also #1, I think). ICE is definitely not gone. I don't know if these delivered vehicles were then driven out individually or on trucks, or if they still remain there.

We know that ICE is stealing license plates from cars of observers, making it more difficult for USA citizens to use their cars for anything. It's reasonable to suspect that ICE will use those plates on their own vehicles, as a disguise to hide their true identity. It's not unreasonable, since we know they are doing illegal plate swaps on vehicles, even using duplicated plates. We know that local law enforcement doesn't care when ICE commits crimes, even when it happens right in front of them.

We know that ICE steals children then tries to bureaucratically hide them. Fuck ICE for terrorizing young people. I don't use language like that lightly. I only ever do it when it's important. Like when children keep getting killed in this shithole country where 1/3 of the population worships greed and violence, defending it and voting for it. I still join my patrols, hoping to dissuade ICE from abducting more children, or at least to record the event, so people are not forgotten amongst the lies that ICE and this Republican administration tell.

You can see maps of known ICE abductions at this webpage, below. It's 238 days until the 2026 elections in the USA. Trump will use ICE violently and massively again before that date arrives.

https://iceout.org/

Sadly, Mni Owe Sni will disband this week, due to it being located on a documented Dakota burial site, so they'll remove the prayer camp. This article (MPR News) has good reporting on the tribal discussion about the presence of the camp.

This is a MoodyMonday topic, so I'm sorry for posting it today, but it's timely.

Governor Walz has called in the Minnesota National Guard to St. Paul, Minnesota USA, as part of the declaration of emergency in the city due to cyber attack. People on social media are asking, "Why this response? What's the danger?" You can hear basically that same question from a reporter in this YouTube video of the public announcement from Mayor Carter at lunchtime today. The mayor and the IT chief spent too much time and too many words giving very bad non-answers to that question.

This news article notes the following 2 details:

1. "According to the Governor’s Office, 'the magnitude and complexity of the cybersecurity incident have exceeded the city’s response capacity.' "
2. "The city, on Monday, fully shut down its information systems 'as a defensive measure to contain the threat.' "

The city controls services like police, fire, paramedics, public health, and 911. You can see the list by clicking the word "Government" at the top of their webpage. Their network and systems are down right now, except for 911 which seems to be operating on backup resources. So the problem isn't library resources and paying water bills, like the reporter suggested in the video. My theory is this:

The FBI told St. Paul that someone trying to control all of these resources might want to disable them simultaneously if they intended to launch a physical attack on city buildings and services. Since the city network is down by intent (of the city in this case, not the cyber attackers), it is more susceptible than usual to terror attack or general lawlessness. Hence... the Minnesota National Guard was called in as a reasonable precaution for either possibility.

Hopefully their presence will deter any potential attack from terrorists, and nobody will notice delays in responses to 911 calls, so garden variety criminals will not get any ideas. Or (sub-theory of "tinfoil hat" variety) somebody trying to make a Democrat national spokesperson look bad by establishing chaos in his capital city will fail in the effort.

That's my theory. Hopefully we get substantial news once all systems are back online and the computer forensics are completed. But there are troops in the Minnesota capital city today.