Hello Reader,

A Brief Interruption

This week brings abbreviated dispatches—quick strikes rather than deep synthesis. That fuller treatment returns in two weeks—before the paid tier launches late February.
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Why the pause? Tomorrow I'm throwing a dance party for 25 five-year-olds. If I survive, I fly to Medellín the next day, followed by Panama and Honduras.
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Not coincidentally, all three nations bristle with anti-American sentiment. I'm going to listen—respectfully—to citizens grappling with their leaders' failures and America's power flexes in the region. The ghosts of past U.S. interventions still haunt those streets.
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Those conversations could be tense, but I'm far more nervous about the daddy-daughter dance routine.
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The newsletter returns February 17th with another abbreviated episode before resuming full depth.
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Now, to this week's Fragments from the Rebellion. I've said I'd cover domestic politics only when they intersect with the global fight for freedom—but the deaths of two American citizens during federal immigration operations in Minneapolis demands our attention.

What Reagan Understood

In 1986, millions of undocumented immigrants were embedded in American communities. Mass deportation would fracture the country and transform enforcement into civil conflict.
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Years after Reagan’s second term ended in 1989, his Chief of Staff, James Baker, reflected on the controversy that preceded Reagan’s signing of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.
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"Reagan understood that if you push people into a corner, you don't get compliance—you get resistance."
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"We needed a solution that the country could live with. Otherwise, you end up with a law that exists on paper but collapses in practice."
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"You can't just deport millions of people," Baker said. "It wasn't realistic, and it wasn't right."
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Reagan's team chose compromise over domination. They legalized 2.7 million already settled here, then enforced the law going forward through employer sanctions and border control. Realism and national unity mattered more than theatrical displays of power.
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This is what wise and mature leadership looks like.

What Trump Failed to Grasp

Trump instead chose maximalist enforcement and incendiary tactics. Rather than targeting known criminals as border czar Tom Homan advocated, his administration swept entire neighborhoods—arresting citizens along with immigrants.
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He appointed Gregory Bovino to lead: a man who posted videos of himself heavily armed on horseback and launching green smoke at protesters like a warlord.
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ICE had legal authority to operate in Minneapolis. Removing violent criminals was the right goal. But legal authority doesn't excuse catastrophic judgment in execution. Deploying Bovino—with his incendiary rhetoric and overly aggressive tactics—transformed lawful enforcement into tragedy.
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This is a moral failure, not a legal one. Wise leadership understands the difference.
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Two American citizens lie dead.

The Evidence of Your Eyes

After Alex Pretti's death, Trump administration officials unleashed a torrent of fabrications: Stephen Miller called Pretti "a would-be assassin" who "tried to murder federal law enforcement." Noem declared both Pretti and Renée Good "domestic terrorists," claiming Pretti "attacked" officers while "brandishing" a weapon and that agents fired "defensive shots." Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino—now removed—insisted Pretti intended to "massacre law enforcement." FBI Director Kash Patel falsely claimed carrying firearms at protests violates law.
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Bystander video clearly showed none of this was true.
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Even the NRA condemned Patel's narrative as "dangerous and wrong," noting Pretti held a valid concealed carry permit under Minnesota law. Internal CBP reviews found zero evidence Pretti brandished a weapon or attacked anyone.
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George Orwell warned of tyranny's final command: "The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears."
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Bovino is gone. Noem remains—treating the tragic deaths of two American citizens as justice delivered.

Additional Observations

Here are some of the other fault lines I'm exploring this week, but have yet to fully reconcile:

Legal Authority Dismantles DHS Justification

Department of Homeland Security General Counsel Jimmy Percival took to the Wall Street Journal defending administrative warrants—signed by immigration officers, not judges—for entering homes to arrest illegal aliens with final removal orders. His argument: illegal aliens lack full Fourth Amendment protections, and those with removal orders are "fugitives from justice." Decades of "deep state" lawyers wrongly blocked this practice, he argued, forcing ICE to wait outside homes while aliens mocked them through windows.
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Widely respected Georgetown Law Professor Stephen Vladeck responded, dismantling both claims. The Supreme Court has never held that non-citizens lack Fourth Amendment protections—only that those protections don't extend to homes in other countries. Most aliens with removal orders aren't fugitives—they're authorized to remain at liberty until receiving "bag-and-baggage letters." Many don't even know removal orders exist after in absentia proceedings.
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Vladeck's right. Empowering executive officers to sign their own search warrants would clear a path to tyranny.

Trump's Minnesota Motive Questioned

On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal observed: “The heavy presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Minnesota, of all places, is hard to justify. The undocumented populations of California, New York, Texas, Florida, New Jersey and Illinois, among other states, are far larger. As metropolitan areas go, the number of illegal Minneapolis residents doesn’t even rank in the top 20, according to a Pew Research Center analysis.
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Is Minnesota being targeted on the merits, or because the president has a personal vendetta against its governor, Tim Walz, who happened to be Kamala Harris’s running mate in 2024?”
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Fair question.

Paul and Rubio Dance the Constitutional Tango

The constitutional fault line between presidential power and congressional war authority split wide open Wednesday as Rand Paul confronted Marco Rubio at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. It was a fascinating exchange.

Paul posed a thought experiment: "If a foreign country bombed our air defense missiles, captured and removed our president, and blockaded our country, would that be considered an act of war?"
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Rubio defended the operation as "law enforcement," insisting it doesn't approach "the constitutional definition of war"—citing Maduro's contested 2024 election and U.S. narcotics indictment.
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Paul pressed: "Of course it would be an act of war. I think we need to at least acknowledge this is a one-way argument." Paul went on to concede "the U.S. should act in its national interests," yet called the administration's justifications "empty" and "a ruse." His stark conclusion: "We do what we do because we have the force, we have the might."
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I share many of Paul's libertarian ideals, while being less isolationist. But his consistency across administrations—Republican and Democrat—commands the respect Rubio clearly afforded him.
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I may not agree with Paul on everything, but these are exactly the questions the GOP Congress has been far too sheepish to ask.
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