Weekly Recap — January 5-11, 2026
The Unraveling Begins
While others stenograph, grift, or chase the next distraction—this is the news that matters and how it’s connected.
One week ago, Nicolás Maduro was the president of Venezuela. Today he’s in a Manhattan jail. Renee Good was alive. Today she’s dead—shot by an ICE agent whose colleagues called her a “fucking bitch” after they killed her. Greenland was a NATO ally’s territory. Today, the U.S. military is allegedly drawing up invasion plans.
This was the week the abstractions became concrete. This was the week America became what it claims to fight.
Renee Good: From Citizen to “Terrorist”
The shooter: Jonathan Ross. Firearms instructor. FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force member. Iraq War combat veteran. Eighteen years of federal law enforcement experience. ICE training explicitly says: never stand in front of a vehicle; never shoot at a moving vehicle; firing won’t stop it.
Wednesday: Ross shot Renee Good in the head on a Minneapolis street. She was 37. A mother of three. Unarmed. She was watching out for her immigrant neighbors during a raid. Her last words to Ross, with a smile: “That’s fine dude. I’m not mad at you.”
Within hours, the lies began. Noem: Good “weaponized her vehicle” in “an act of domestic terrorism.” Trump: she was a “professional agitator” who “violently, willfully, and viciously ran over” the agent. Vance reposted video on X: “The reality is that his life was endangered and he fired in self-defense.” White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt: Ross “properly defended himself from being run over.”
He wasn’t run over. He chose to violate his training—to step in front of a vehicle, to unholster his gun, aim, and fire rather than step away, as his training mandates. He walked away unharmed. He got in his vehicle and drove off.
Thursday: Federal agents raided Roosevelt High School, pepper sprayed students, handcuffed staff. The FBI blocked Minnesota from investigating the shooting. Vice President Vance’s response to Governor Walz’s concerns? “I don’t care what Tim Walz says.”
Friday-Saturday: More than 2,000 federal agents now occupy Minneapolis. Schools are virtual through February 12.
A trained firearms instructor who knew exactly what he was doing shot a woman who smiled at him seconds before. Then they called her a bitch. Then they called her a terrorist. Then they occupied her city.
Greenland: From Threat to Invasion Plans
Monday: Trump linked Greenland to Venezuela explicitly: “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security.” He refused to rule out military force.
Tuesday-Wednesday: Seven European leaders issued a joint statement: “Greenland belongs to its people.” Former French Prime Minister de Villepin warned that if Trump attacks Greenland, “the status of the US will go from adversary or rival to the one of enemy.” Senator Chris Murphy noted that NATO’s Article 5—the treaty we wrote—would apply against us. Danish PM Frederiksen: a U.S. attack would mean “the end of NATO.”
Greenland’s party leaders had their own answer: “We don’t want to be Americans, we don’t want to be Danes, we want to be Greenlanders.”
Thursday-Friday: Trump threatened to take Greenland “the hard way.” His justification for dismissing Danish sovereignty? “The fact that they had a boat land there 500 years ago doesn’t mean that they own the land.”
Saturday: The Mail on Sunday reported that Trump has ordered the Joint Special Operations Command to draw up invasion plans. The Joint Chiefs are allegedly resisting on grounds it’s illegal. A diplomatic source described the generals’ strategy: “It’s like dealing with a five-year-old.”
Full analysis: BREAKING: Trump Allegedly Orders Military to Plan Greenland Invasion
For fifty years, we let the extraction machine consume everything the post-war order created—the middle class, the social contract, the shared prosperity that made America the envy of the world. We let them divide us with moral panics across race, class, and religion. The USSR spent four decades trying to break the West. They failed. We did it ourselves. The Soviets are gone. We have become the threat.
And now the system that ate America from the inside is reaching outward. Remember the peace of your childhood. We’re about to foreclose on it for our grandchildren.
Venezuela: From “Liberation” to Acquisition
Monday: The week began with Maduro in U.S. custody after a 30-minute military raid that killed at least 80 people. Trump’s words: “We are going to run the country.” Not support. Not advise. Run.
Tuesday: The UN Security Council held its first emergency meeting of 2026. The U.S. stood isolated as allies and adversaries united in condemnation. German conservative MP Roderich Kiesewetter: “The U.S. are abandoning the rules-based order that has shaped us since 1945.” Stephen Miller went on CNN and said the quiet part loud: the world is “governed by strength, by force, by power.”
Wednesday-Thursday: U.S. forces seized two Russian-flagged oil tankers. Trump announced Venezuela would hand over 50 million barrels of oil—money “controlled by me, as President.” Pope Leo XIV addressed the Vatican: “War is back in vogue... The principle established after the Second World War, which prohibited nations from using force to violate the borders of others, has been completely undermined.”
Friday: The State Department told Americans in Venezuela to leave “immediately.” Armed militias are searching vehicles at roadblocks, hunting for U.S. citizens. The country Trump promised to liberate has become so dangerous that our own government is telling Americans to flee.
Before the strike, Trump consulted oil companies. He didn’t brief Congress—they “have a tendency to leak.” After the strike, he summoned those same executives to the White House to divide the spoils.
This was never liberation. This was acquisition. And the power that takes countries abroad is the same power that takes lives at home.
The Question
On Thursday, something else happened. Philadelphia Sheriff Rochelle Bilal stood at a podium and called ICE agents “made-up fake wannabe law enforcement.” She said: “The criminal in the White House will not be able to keep you from going to jail.”
DA Larry Krasner was more direct: “We have a criminal in chief in the White House, just so we are real clear, and that’s not just my opinion—that’s the opinion of a jury that found him guilty of 34 felonies.” He promised to prosecute any federal agent who commits crimes in Philadelphia. And he noted the key legal point: “Donald Trump cannot pardon you for a state court conviction.”
Coverage? One CNN segment. Local news. Fox—to attack them. 1.6 million people watched a viral clip. Mainstream media moved on.
This is the question the week leaves us with:
Is Philadelphia the beginning—or an anomaly? Will other DAs, AGs, and sheriffs use the power they have? Or will they stay silent while federal agents occupy cities, kill citizens, and call them terrorists?
Will the people demand that their elected officials stand up? Or will we keep feeding the machine—showing up to protests that give the regime exactly the spectacle it craves, the excuse for more violence, more cruelty, more occupation?
Every DA in America has the power Philadelphia is claiming. Every state AG. Every sheriff. The question isn’t whether the tools exist. It’s whether anyone else will pick them up.
And beyond pushing back—who will lead? Who will articulate the vision of what America could be? Opposition alone isn’t leadership. Leadership means giving people something worth building, not just something to resist.
There’s more below, but first: If this kind of work—tracking the pattern when others look away—feels worth having, please consider supporting The American Manifesto. Paid subscriptions make it possible to keep watching when watching is the last thing anyone wants to do.
The Pattern
We’ve been mapping this administration against the fascism syndrome—ten indicators that a democracy is backsliding into fascism. This week checked all ten:
Mythic restoration: The “Donroe Doctrine”—”American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again”
Identity-based scapegoating: Immigrants targeted for who they are; Good killed for standing with them
Cult of the leader: Republican support for Venezuela action increased after Trump acted without authorization; support for Congressional oversight dropped
War on reality: “Self-defense” claims contradicted by video, by training protocols, by the fact that Ross walked away unharmed
Capture of the state and elimination of accountability: FBI blocks state investigation; VP calls War Powers Act “fundamentally fake”; generals allegedly describe managing Trump as “like dealing with a five-year-old”—and get overruled
Erosion of due process: Immigrants detained without normal legal protections; Good’s family denied independent investigation into her death
Normalization of political violence: Executing a citizen, calling her a “fucking bitch,” raiding a school, pepper spraying students, occupying a city with 2,000 federal agents
Consolidation of economic power: Oil executives summoned to the White House to divide Venezuela’s resources; Trump: money “controlled by me, as President”
Aggression as virtue: Invading Venezuela, seizing oil tankers, threatening Greenland “the hard way,” allegedly ordering invasion plans against a NATO ally
Weaponized justice: President, Vice President, and DHS Secretary declared Ross innocent within hours—then blocked the state from investigating
Ten of ten. The unraveling has begun. The only question is what rises from the wreckage.
If you want to understand the machine—and how to dismantle it—start here:
Your Move
Are the people around you paying attention—and if not, what would it take to reach them?
If you’re in a state with an elected DA or AG, have you contacted them about using state authority against federal overreach?
What does an America worth building look like to you—beyond resistance?
Article Sources
This weekly recap synthesizes reporting from our daily coverage. For full sourcing on each story:
Venezuela: Daily News — January 5, January 6, January 9
Greenland: Daily News — January 5, January 7; BREAKING: Trump Allegedly Orders Military to Plan Greenland Invasion
Renee Good: Daily News — January 7, January 8, January 9, January 10
Philadelphia: “A Criminal in Chief”: Philadelphia Officials Show What Resistance Actually Looks Like
This is cold, merciless, and I think true - except for the idea that protests are “feeding the machine.” Getting out to demonstrate shows our neighbors that the opposition is real - even if the MSM largely ignores us - it gives us a way to connect with fellow resistors, and it offers an alternative to despair. No, our sidewalk protests won’t take the place of pressure on our electeds. And none of us wants to be shot, coal rolled, or run over. But conscience demands we show up.