Qualified Liar, Absolute Nonsense

At a White House press briefing, JD Vance claimed that the ICE agent who shot and killed Renee Nicole Good is “protected by absolute immunity” because he was acting as a federal law enforcement official carrying out his duties. He said:

“You have a federal law enforcement official engaging in federal law enforcement action — that’s a federal issue. He is protected by absolute immunity. He was doing his job.”

First of all, what he is describing sounds more like qualified immunity (I know this from all the years I spent watching L.A. Law), and JD Vance has a law degree from Yale, so he has necessarily been exposed to the concept and should therefore know this to be false.

He framed his statement to mean that a state prosecution attempting to hold the agent accountable under Minnesota law would be inappropriate.

Federal agents do not have absolute immunity from state criminal prosecution.

Further, while everyone is concentrating on deadly force, reciprocal force and/or proportional response would no doubt have produced a more equitable outcome.

While we understand that Donald Trump lies with impunity because he is a malignant narcissist, JD Vance seems to be driven only by elevating himself by any means necessary.

It was JD Vance who called Trump “America’s Hitler.” It was JD Vance who compared Trump to heroin for the GOP. It was he who marketed himself as a working-class truth teller, although it is now clear that he wouldn’t know the truth if it bit him on the balls.

Trump says outrageous things because he can’t help himself.
Vance says outrageous things because he thinks that’s what the Fox-and-friends focus group wants to hear.


Although I don’t want to take attention away from Renee Good, we have to ask: why is ICE in Minnesota anyway?

It’s kind of a repeat of “They are eating the dogs.” Some members of the Somali community have been implicated in fraud associated with Somali-linked childcare providers. This is a special opportunity for Trump and MAGA because, like the Haitians from last summer, Somalis are Black.

It doesn’t matter that virtually all of the Somali community in Minnesota are either U.S. citizens or legally documented immigrants. It’s a ripe opportunity for Trump’s ragtag vigilantes, assembled in panoplied, pussified police gear, to run roughshod over an already accused community who happen to be not just people of color, but Black.

So, circling back to JD Vance, let’s not forget that when called out about his fabrication of the “eating the dogs” story, he said, and I quote:

“If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m gonna do.”

I'm just saying.

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