Roundup #76: Great Powers acting stupid

Howdy, folks! The theme of this week’s roundup is “self-inflicted harm by the world’s Great Powers”. I left Europe out of the mix this week, since their own improving growth, rearmament, decoupling from America, and successful pushback over Greenland makes them look a little less like a basket case. But the U.S., China, and Russia are each showing weakness in their own ways. For the U.S., the big problem is the MAGA ideology, which refuses to respect the law or interface with reality on many fronts. For China, the problem is Xi Jinping’s autocratic rule and the inevitable internal dissent this fosters. And of course for Russia, the problem is the Ukraine war. But I also note that India is being a lot smarter than the major powers, because it’s focusing on growth instead of on domestic disputes or dreams of empire.

1. The execution of Alex Pretti was totally predictable

Just a couple of weeks after ICE agents gunned down Renee Good in her car, some other ICE agents just carried out an execution-style killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. There are plenty of videos, and here’s a detailed blow-by-blow of what happened (and here’s another if you want confirmation). Pretti was a protester who showed up with a holstered pistol, which is legal in Minnesota. He was filming ICE, and then went to help a woman who had been shoved by ICE agents. ICE tackled him to the ground, took away his gun, and then fired at least ten shots into Pretti, killing him.

Stephen Miller immediately claimed that Pretti had been a terrorist intent on massacring ICE agents, while JD Vance blamed protesters and Democrats for the killing. But Americans are not fooled, and the administration may have made a tactical error by denying the existence of Second Amendment rights. Some GOP Senators are calling for an investigation into the killing. Meanwhile, this just builds on the wave of anger at ICE that followed the killing of Renee Good; already, a majority of poll respondents in some polls favor abolishing ICE entirely.

Meanwhile, these killings are just the tip of the ICEberg, so to speak. Kyle Cheney has compiled a list of over 2,300 cases in which courts found that ICE illegally detained someone. The federal agency’s lawbreaking is systematic and flagrant, and the fact that the Trump administration has gone to the mat for this