DHS Memo Tells Agents to Build a Protester Database

The Morning Sixpack - 01/28/2026 Trump lashes out at mayors and GOP rebels, DHS surveils protesters, Omar attacked, Venezuela pushes back, and Tim Cook misreads the moment

DHS Memo Tells Agents to Build a Protester Database—And Minneapolis Is Ground Zero

A leaked memo shows the federal government quietly treating protest as a data-mining opportunity—and it’s happening in plain sight.

According to documents obtained by CNN, agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Homeland Security Investigations in Minneapolis were instructed to collect personal details on people protesting ICE. The directive urged agents to log images, license plates, IDs, and even hotel information into a single “intel collection non-arrests” form—vacuuming up data on protesters and “agitators” alike.

That dragnet may have included Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse beaten by federal agents days before he was killed by Customs and Border Protection officers. A source told CNN that agents already knew Pretti’s name, though it’s unclear whether he was entered into the database—a distinction that feels academic given the outcome.

The posture isn’t confined to Minnesota. In Portland, Maine, a masked ICE agent warned a woman filming officers that her information would be placed into a “nice little database” labeling her a domestic terrorist. Elsewhere, agents have reportedly made house calls to volunteer ICE watchers—an intimidation tactic that blurs the line between law enforcement and political surveillance.

DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin denied building a database of “domestic terrorists,” calling the effort routine policing. Her statement is worth quoting in full:

“We do of course monitor and investigate and refer all threats, assaults and obstruction of our officers to the appropriate law enforcement. Obstructing and assaulting law enforcement is a felony and a federal crime.”

The problem is that merely observing or filming federal agents has increasingly been treated as “obstruction”—a definition that keeps collapsing under scrutiny.

Source: The New Republic

Editor: This is what happens when accountability is rebranded as agitation and the First Amendment is treated like probable cause.

Trump Goes Full All-Caps on Minneapolis Mayor Over Sanctuary Defiance

Donald Trump is now openly threatening a major U.S. city for refusing to help ICE round people up.

The president lashed out Wednesday morning after Jacob Frey reaffirmed that Minneapolis would not abandon its sanctuary policies—even under federal pressure. Trump had dispatched border hardliner Tom Homan to the city following the fatal shooting of ICU nurse Alex Pretti by immigration officers, clearly expecting compliance. He didn’t get it.

Frey said he warned Homan that the federal operation was harming the community and draining local police resources, adding plainly that Minneapolis “does not and will not enforce federal immigration laws.” That statement triggered an immediate meltdown from Donald Trump, who took to Truth Social to scold the mayor in classic ALL-CAPS fashion.

“Could somebody in his inner sanctum please explain that this statement is a very serious violation of the Law, and that he is PLAYING WITH FIRE!” Trump wrote, claiming the mayor’s position contradicted a “very good conversation” they’d supposedly just had. Translation: say nice things in private, obey in public—or else.

The threat comes as the administration leans on cities to assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement with detentions, dangling the removal of federal agents as leverage. It’s a familiar move—federal muscle, vague legal warnings, and presidential tantrums when local leaders don’t fall in line.

Source: RawStory

Editor: All-caps lawyering is not a statute, and threatening a mayor for following city policy isn’t “leadership”—it’s coercion dressed up as Truth Social performance art. If this is what federalism looks like now, expect more cities to start fireproofing.

Pro Tip: Don’t call them ICE. Call them what they are: Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They are NOT police nor military. They are essentially a civil servant organization created to enforce customs rules like not passing fruit over the border. Fuck giving them a menacing acronym.

Man Sprays Ilhan Omar with Syringe at Town Hall—She Refuses to Back Down

Political violence crossed another line Tuesday night when a man rushed a sitting member of Congress and sprayed her with an unknown substance.

A man was tackled by security after approaching Ilhan Omar at the lectern during a town hall in Minneapolis and spraying a liquid from a syringe in her direction. Footage shows Omar being urged to step back and get checked as attendees nearby said the substance smelled bad. The suspect is now in custody.

Moments before the attack, Omar had sharply called on Kristi Noem to resign or face impeachment amid fallout from the fatal shooting of ICU nurse Alex Pretti by federal officers. Noem has been under bipartisan criticism, and the timing of the assault only underscored how heated—and dangerous—the political climate has become.

Omar, visibly unfazed, refused to end the event. “We will continue,” she said. “These f****** a**holes are not going to get away with it.” Her office later confirmed she was okay, adding that she continued the town hall because “she doesn’t let bullies win.”

We broke it here last night when it happened:

In a follow-up message, Omar made clear she would not be intimidated, telling the crowd, “We are Minnesota strong and we will stay resilient in the face of whatever they might throw at us.” The incident echoes a recent assault on Maxwell Frost (link), who said he was punched after being threatened with deportation.

Threats against lawmakers are surging. According to United States Capitol Police, threat assessment cases rose for the third straight year, with 14,938 incidents investigated in 2025 alone—a nearly 58% jump from 2024.

Source: NPR

Editor: This is what radicalization looks like when leaders wink at it and agencies lose control of the narrative. A syringe at a town hall isn’t “heated rhetoric”—it’s the price of pretending political violence is just another talking point. Stochastic terrorism is real and the Trump Regime is in full game mode.

Venezuela’s New Leader Tells Washington “Enough”

Delcy Rodríguez just told Washington to back off—and she did it while standing on the political tightrope the U.S. built.

Speaking to oil workers in Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela’s acting president said she’s done taking cues from the White House, even as her own position exists largely because of U.S. intervention. “Enough already of Washington’s orders over politicians in Venezuela,” Delcy Rodríguez said, calling instead for Venezuelans to resolve their own political conflicts after years of upheaval.

Rodríguez has been navigating a precarious balancing act since the U.S. kidnapped former leader Nicolás Maduro and flew him to New York to face charges. Backed by Donald Trump as an interim leader, she has tried to keep Maduro loyalists from bolting while reassuring Washington she won’t rock the boat—or the oil markets.

Trump initially bragged that the U.S. was “going to run” Venezuela after Maduro’s capture, then pivoted to praising Rodríguez as a “terrific person” following a phone call. Behind the scenes, however, the administration laid out stiff demands: cut ties with China, Iran, Russia, and Cuba; partner exclusively with the U.S. on oil; and release political prisoners.

Oil is the leverage point. Venezuela holds the world’s largest reserves of extra-heavy crude—messy, expensive to refine, but tailor-made for U.S. refineries. Rodríguez has signaled cooperation, including prioritizing U.S. oil companies, while also pushing back rhetorically to preserve domestic legitimacy.

On the prisoner front, movement is real but murky. Rights group Foro Penal says at least 266 detainees have been released since January, including 104 on Sunday alone. Rodríguez claims the number is higher and says she’ll ask Volker Türk to verify a list that still hasn’t been made public.

Source: CNN

Editor: When your job exists because Washington kicked in the door, telling Washington to stop giving orders is a risky flex. Rodríguez is trying to sound sovereign while managing a country whose oil, prisons, and politics are all under U.S. supervision—and everyone in Caracas knows it.

Trump Goes After Indiana Republicans Who Defied His Redistricting Demands

Donald Trump is now targeting Republicans in Indiana for the crime of not doing what he told them to do.

The president has endorsed primary challengers against three Indiana GOP state senators who voted against a mid-decade redistricting plan designed to juice Republican congressional power. The move signals Trump’s growing willingness to intervene in down-ballot races to punish dissent—and his irritation that Indiana Republicans derailed a strategy meant to offset a Democrat-friendly map in California.

Trump had openly warned Indiana lawmakers that defying the redistricting push would come with consequences. In December, 21 Republican state senators joined Democrats to block the new map, killing a plan that would have tilted every congressional district in the GOP’s favor. This week, Trump followed through, backing challengers against Greg Walker, Travis Holdman, and Jim Buck.

On Truth Social, Donald Trump branded all three lawmakers “RINOs,” while endorsing Michelle Davis, Blake Fiechter, and Tracey Powell in their primary challenges. Whether Trump plans to add money, rallies, or infrastructure to those endorsements remains unclear.

Walker, who had planned not to seek reelection but filed anyway, said he doesn’t regret his vote and warned of the dangers of nationalizing state politics. “The more distant or unrelatable these endorsements are, the less they have on the voter’s decision,” he said—a reminder that Trump’s influence doesn’t always scale cleanly to statehouse races.

Davis, for her part, welcomed the backing, calling it “a clear validation of my conservative record.” The other candidates declined to comment, leaving Indiana Republicans to watch as internal party disputes are dragged into Trump’s personal grievance machine.

Source: NOTUS

Editor: If you ever wondered how “states’ rights” ends, it’s with a Truth Social post calling you a RINO because you didn’t rig a map hard enough. Trump doesn’t just want loyalty—he wants obedience, right down to the county line.

Tim Cook Parties at White House—Then Scrambles After Minneapolis Killing

Apple’s CEO found himself in damage-control mode after being photographed at a White House VIP party just hours after a federal agent killed an ICU nurse in Minneapolis.

Tim Cook attended a black-tie premiere of a Melania Trump documentary on Saturday night, hosted at the White House alongside Donald Trump. The timing could not have been worse: earlier that day, 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti was shot dead by a federal agent in Minneapolis.

Photos from the event—posted by the film’s director—sparked immediate backlash online and inside Apple, prompting Cook to send a personal memo to staff attempting to explain himself. In it, he expressed heartbreak over the Minneapolis killing and emphasized the need for de-escalation, a message that landed awkwardly given the champagne-and-cameras setting.

The backlash came as the administration poured more than 3,000 DHS agents into Minneapolis in what critics have called a deliberately provocative surge. Pretti was the second Minneapolis resident killed by federal agents this month, following the death of Renee Good on January 7.

Trump, for his part, said this week his administration was “going to deescalate a little bit”—a claim that did little to cool outrage, or to soften the optics of a tech CEO celebrating at the White House while a city was reeling.

Source: MSN

Editor: We all love the smell of baked apples in the morning, don’t we? Apple, along with its CEO, Tim “Apple”, is COOKED. Sell your CrApple shit.