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Every day it's the same thing. For my treatment for opioid addiction, it reminds me of my addiction. Every day it's the same thing. For my treatment for opioid addiction. Every day, it's the same thing. Every day.
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Day after day. Does treatment for opioid addiction leave a bad taste? Visit rethinkyourrecovery.com to learn more and find a doctor.
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Navigating post military challenges can be tough. Regardless of when you served, you are not alone. Connect with fellow organ veterans and find activities, navigate resources and join a community to help support your journey or challenges after military service. From mental health support to veteran community groups and activities, discover what's possible for you at BeyondTheMilitaryUniform.com that's BeyondTheMilitaryUniform.com hello, everyone.
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This is JVL here with my best friend Sarah Longwell, publisher of the Bulwark. We are A, coming to you quite late on Friday. Normally we do this thing at like 7 o' clock in the morning. Couldn't make that happen today. Sorry. And B, we're coming to you about a minute and a half after watching the cell phone video taken by the shooter who killed the woman in Minneapolis, the unarmed woman, Renee Good, two days ago. And I, this is one of those moments where I, I'm sorry, we're just going to have to be very real with you. You are getting unfiltered reactions of the two of us. And. Sarah, do you want to go first?
A
I don't know, man. I was trying to decide. You know, I asked you before we started, like, should we, should we do this? Because I, I am, I'm just so angry watching this. And I, the part of what is, okay, there is two different layers of the anger. There is the incident itself, which should never have happened. And I, I can't help but thinking, you know, when somebody who is here illegally kills an American, one of the things that people say that I totally makes sense to me is they say, well, this is sort of a double tragedy in the sense that that person wasn't supposed to be here and now this person's dead. Right. And, and that, that makes sense. That is how I feel about this ICE shooting. They shouldn't have been there.
B
Nope.
A
There is no reason for them to have been there. They are going into communities. Yeah. They're going into communities.
B
Yeah.
A
And they are making them less safe. And yes. Here, here's the. So that's, that's one layer of it. It's just the, the, it was a, it was an entirely avoidable tragedy that is happening because Donald Trump is building this paramilitary force that is in the streets of America's neighborhoods. Just. And look, I, I still, it's like unclear to me what they were doing there in the first place. But the, the new footage to me, and this is, this is sort of gets to the second layer of the anger, which is that they are lying about all of it. Like, like J.D. vance. So J.D. vance takes that video, okay. And he says, watch this. As hard as it is, many of you have been told this law enforcement officer wasn't hit by a car, wasn't being harassed and murdered an innocent woman. The reality is that his life was endangered and he fired in self defense. And so then, even though I've watched this video now a thousand times, I watched it over and over again because it makes it to me. And I'm really trying to check myself because this is clearly turning into a Rorschach test. Right? It feels like it is. Like a lot of people on the right, Eric Erickson, you know, whatever. They're all just saying, oh, well, this makes it clear he was hit by the car. And it, that's not what it makes clear at all. It's. To me, it's clear he dropped his cell phone because what he was doing was walking around her car filming it. Right. There's like these, it's the way you see these tense interactions now and where people are filming each other. Right. Everybody. So he's got his cell phone out. And as. And what to me giving this straight on camera view shows is it's so clear she is trying to get around him. Like she is trying to get out of there. And he. Sir. And she's trying to get away because the other guy is coming screaming, get out of the car. And grabbing at the door handle, which.
B
Which is a thing that a, a professional police does. Right.
A
Like that cannot be the way police.
B
Yeah.
A
Approach people.
B
Oh, it is.
A
Yeah. I know, I know, I know. And then, and then he shoots her three times. So here's the thing. If the car hit him, what, what.
B
We'Re hearing what they say, then he was no longer in danger. Right.
A
If the car hit him, how's he standing there shooting her?
B
And again, he's not knocked out by the car.
A
He drops his.
B
No longer in danger. Right. That is an event which has happened and he is no longer in danger. It's.
A
But, but it is. It's J.D. vance and the administration lying about it. She is having an interaction with him. She goes her Last words were her last farts.
B
I'm not mad at you.
A
It's fine, dude, I'm not mad at you. She is saying to him in a, in a way that is, it is, and it is her, her partner is having words with this guy where she's like, hey, big boy, why don't you go get some lunch? Like, it's not a, it's not a pleasant exchange, but it is also not like a threatening exchange, right? Like by any stretch of the imagination.
B
Going to kill you or anything. It is a, you know, they're there to troll and trigger the people in that neighborhood. And the people in the neighborhood or they are saying, we do not appreciate you being here. That's what that is.
A
Can I, can I tell you actually, so, so there's the part where they're lying. Like, there's no part of this where they called her a domestic terrorist right out of the gate, okay? Donald Trump said he watched the video and couldn't believe that ICE agent was still alive.
B
Like he said he ran him over. Ran him over.
A
It is complete and utter. It's gaslighting, like part of normally, right? We've got the words. I keep not having the words because the lie is so clear. It's sort of like with. It's like the election being sold. The way they changed the website around January 6th, like this entire week has been our government lying to us about what is happening. Now if the government, if Trump or Kristi Noem had been responsible and said, we are reviewing this, we will come back and, and you know, talk about it, this is a tragedy, that would be one thing. But they immediately smeared her as a domestic terrorist. And can I just give you my third thing, actually? And this is not really about Trump or the incident, but there is a category of people, Matt Walsh and a lot of these right wingers that keep calling her like a lesbian liberal, whatever, and they keep throwing the lesbian in there because they're trying to other her. Their fear is that people will watch this and say, oh, that just looks. That's clearly not somebody that ISIS needs to go get. Like, that is a woman who looks. And, and, and this is, this is like. So this is like unfair, right? Because I think that there's no doubt that part of their fear is they shot like a 37 year old white woman that they are very afraid is going to engender more than your average level of sympathy. Because people are more likely to be like, that could have been me with the stuffed animal in my. And so they Want to use the lesbian stuff to be like, no, no, she's not like you. She's a radical leftist lesbian, guys. Because, you know, because then you can use the lesbian to code it more left and, and to make her sound radical. To make her sound other. No, she's just an American who saw this thing taking place. She was dropping her kid off at school and so she rolls up to see it and there's all these people standing around and they're all arguing with ICE about the fact that they're in these. Like you can hear it. There's all these surrounding people doing it. And what did they do? She starts to leave this, leave it and look in a different world. Should she have not tried to leave? Like, I, I, like, probably. Like, probably not. Like, this is an imperfect situation, but absolutely under no circumstances should he have unloaded three bullets into her. Anybody can see that. It is completely clear they are making.
B
If that is too much danger for him, then he's in the wrong fucking line of work. And you know, I, I am sorry, but if, if having a 37 year old unarmed person pull away from you while you're, you know, Ron DeSantis passed a whole law, the piece saying people should be allowed to do what this woman did. You know, when people are threatening you and surrounding your car, you have, you have the right to leave. If his, if this coward is so, so delicate that he believes his life was being threatened in that, then he, he literally has no business being an officer. Your risk tolerance has to be higher than that. I'm sorry.
A
This is a policy choice. Because it is a policy choice. You can see them everywhere, the recruiting that they're doing. They are just trying to hire as many hostile people as they can and then giving them much less training than a normal officer and then putting them out on the streets in these highly incendiary situations that Americans clearly, many Americans clearly don't want them there. And then they escalate it like this, this is, I am, I'm doing my podcasting. I want to go out. I want to go out in the street.
B
Not doing it in red states. Notice that. Right? Don't have ICE all over Oklahoma. I guess they don't have any illegals in Oklahoma. No. This is like pre Civil War. There is a reason that these teams of massed government agents are being dispatched to democratically populated areas and democratic governed states. And it has nothing to do with rounding up illegal immigrants. It is.
A
Or securing, Securing the border is what's popular. You want to secure the border Tell those ICE agents to go down to the border.
B
That's not what their job actually is.
A
They're roaming through America's.
B
Their job is to harass and hurt and punish the bad people. Meaning people who didn't vote for Donald Trump. That's what this all is. This is like bloody Kansas. And it's. I don't, I am more of a anti police hawk than you are.
A
Yeah.
B
But it is to my mind that the worse, the more serious problem is is the reaction after the fact. I mean I am open to the idea that in a split second encounter anybody, even somebody who is very well intentioned and well trained can make a terrible mistake that leaves somebody dead. That happens in the same way that like, you know, there are bad people. Bad people sometimes become licensed physicians. Bad people sometimes become priests. Right. And do go on to do bad things and crimes. That is something we have to all live with. The really disturbing thing is when it turns out that the institutions around them cover it up or enable it.
A
Yes.
B
And the institutional response to this at every single level from the guys right there just sort of holstering aside armor, you know, like no, nobody there is like holy shit, what have we done?
A
He calls her a. He shoots her and then calls her a.
B
Is that a dispassionate law enforcement officer? Is that some guy who's just getting, getting his rocks off on showing her who his boss? Right. To the spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security to the Secretary of Homeland Security herself who again just lied. Said the. I mean I, I could go pull up her statement for you if you want but it was. It just bears no art of reality.
A
Christine Gnome's initial statement is outrageous. It is outrageous. Is not rageous lie.
B
I'll pull it up over everything about.
A
It is a lie from top to bottom. Why would we believe their account of this? Not to mention.
B
Here's Chris ICE officers were attempting to push out their vehicle from being stuck in the snow. That the. Stuck in the snow is my editorial thing here. And a woman attacked them and those surrounding them and attempted to run over and ram them with her vehicle. That is not. It's not what happened is absolutely. That is absolutely nothing to do with what we, what we have all seen. President United States is lying and, and then the FBI is attempting to impede an investigation on this and prevent accountability by refusing to allow the Minnesota State Board which you know, tracks police, police post shooting investigations from being involved in the investigation. And I just don't know how to, I don't know how to read that as anything other than a regime which which is either okay with or is actively in favor with having its paramilitary groups kill opposition citizens. I mean, you might as well be in the Philippines right under due territory or something. I mean it's not quite that bad yet. But they aren't done hiring.
C
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B
Mistakes happen. But this reaction says it's not an accident, it's not a mistake, it's the policy outcome they want and they're going to keep acting to make more of this hap possible. Yeah, we had another two people were shot in Portland yesterday on Thursday.
A
But it also lacks all the humanity of an incident like this. Like if you, if, if I'm a cop and I get really angry, even if I and I felt threatened by the car, you know, turning out and going, or I wanted to stop it from going and I overreact and I shoot another human being in the face. My reaction is to hit my knees and to say oh, oh my God. Like I just took a life. And this guy, first of all, he flees the scene. He gets in a car and leaves. They're not staying there to talk to people. The his buddies are staying there making sure she doesn't get help from the doctors who are begging to help at the time. Yep, like the lack of humanity. And look, I I when Charlie Kirk was murdered we were real clear that we would breach no like celebration of Charlie Kirk's murder. And there were no Institutional Democrats that I can remember at all who did anything other than offer condolences who did anything other than call for de escalation. Not only are like, like big Republican voices are celebrating this death or saying, you know, around and find out, oh, your life was meaningless way to die. Just like doing this, Kyle. But Kyle Rittenhouse was tweeting like, haha, maybe I should go there. Like, what is happening to people?
B
It's a death cult. So I wrote yesterday about Ashley Babbitt, and I think the, the difference in the reaction to Ashley Babbitt here is really instructive. And I mean, beginning with Trump himself, the institutional reaction on the right to Ashley Babbitt's killing was that it was a tragedy, which I agree with in that it was totally illegitimate for the law enforcement officers on scene to use force against her, that she was doing nothing wrong, that she was not a threat to anybody. And I, I mean if this, if this is the standard for the use of deadly force, what we see here, then my question is how many people should have been shot by the police on January 6?
A
But, but we all at the time committed thousands of them. We commended the police officers on January 6 for not escalating more than they did. It would have been a bloodbath.
B
Right.
A
They took beatings instead of opening fire.
B
On the people that were coming in. Yes. And, but the, the one person who they did open fire on, Ashley Babbitt, then the right views as a martyr who was absolutely not. And this isn't what I wrote yesterday. This isn't hypocrisy, because hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue when you share a set of beliefs and values. That's not what this is. They have a different set of beliefs and values, and theirs is that violence against their enemies is appropriate and acceptable, full stop. Whether that violence is being is, is agents of the state who are their allies waging against unarmed civilians, or whether it is civilian allies of theirs waging against hostile agents of the state. And I, I don't know how dark we want to go on this. Do you want to go any darker?
A
I mean, the only other thought I was having just in terms of how much things have changed, you know, one of the sort of tenants of limited government conservatism that we were raised on was not to be anti cop, but it certainly was to be suspicious of government power. Right.
B
Except for cops suspicious of teachers suspicious of public school teachers suspicious of the irs. It's only the people who have guns in our lives.
A
Well, that's not how I felt. That is not How I felt. I felt like we should be skeptical of state power doesn't mean hostile to it. We just, as free American citizens, we should be sensitive to its overreaches into our ability to live freely. And the way that the right is just like wrapping its arms around this paramilitary force that are all masked up, swearing at people like thugs roaming the streets. They don't even, they don't even look like police officers. Like, they don't. They don't look like people who are like trained. Well, like, the way that they're walking around, the way that they're carrying their firearms.
B
Like, like Middle Eastern or South American paramilitaries.
A
Yeah. Only less well trained.
B
And can you imagine if we didn't have video of this thing? You imagine if it was just eyewitness bystanders giving their version of events versus the official version of events from ICE agents. Can you imagine what that world would look like?
A
But, but this is the part that I'm struggling with so much, is that. It makes you feel like you're taking crazy pills to watch the video and have them tell you something completely as different is happening than what is happening. Because even if you wanted to. To take your frame by frame and try to say, like, oh, he got. He got bumped by this car, which, by the way, I, I don't think is true. Like, I don't. I don't think it's true.
B
If it were true. Getting bumped on the side by a car is not life threatening. And no reasonable person could interpret it to be life threatening. This is right. I mean, it is life threatening to be in front of a car going 35 miles an hour, like, you know, with its bumper at you. But if you are to the side of a car moving at like two miles an hour and it glances off of you, that is not life threatening. And if your judgment is that it is life threatening, then you shouldn't be a police officer because you don't have the judgment for the job. Yeah. Like, this is the, this is literally the, the basis of the job is you need to be able to make these distinctions. Sorry, go ahead.
A
No, I don't know. I mean, we are reacting just sort of like in real, real time. So it's. Sorry that we're casting about, but I just. This should be like, it's. It's the way that people are trying to take something that we can all see with our own eyes, just like January 6th, and tell us that our eyes are lying to us. Tell us that what we are seeing is different than the Thing we are seeing, making it fit a narrative that they want it to fit, even though we can all tell it doesn't. And all the people that are repeating it. Yeah, all the people that are repeating it and they are saying with the same level of certainty that we are saying right now that something different happened. But you know what? Forget Twitter. It's the, this is the official government response. The President of the United States, and they are lying to us about what happened and what we can see with our eyes.
B
Yep. So, J.D.
A
Vance, what a liar.
B
How interested are you in full legal accountability should the opposition party ever retake control, the executive branch? Are you sort of in a. Because I gotta tell you, one of my many worries, I have many worries. One of them is like you. You wind up being able to undo the shackles of this regime and you wind up getting a Democratic president sworn in in 2029, and their reaction is, gotta fix kitchen table issues. We really need to expand healthcare access and we gotta broaden out. You know, Medicare for all who want it is, is our top priority. And, and anybody who says, I don't know, I think we ought to put a whole lot of people from the previous regime in jail at every level. If you tell me you can't do it to the guy who is the sitting president, that's fine. If you tell me you can't do it to J.D. vance or Kristi Noem, fine. But I want people combing through every single piece of video that was shot over the course of this, this time and finding every law enforcement officer who, like, jaywalked or crossed the street wrong and prosecute them to the full extent of the law. I don't care what it costs. I don't care how backward looking it is. You have to establish a, you have to establish a penalty for this so that if we wind up in this situation again, people don't think that they just get to do it for free.
A
Yeah.
B
I think, I promise you, there's no constituency for that, but that is, it's you and me.
A
Well, here's the thing is, I do think the accountability should be. Kristi Noem. I do think it should be these officials, they are creating these circumstances. I don't want, I don't want it to what happened in January 6th, like it was a mistake, that they only prosecuted the people who were fooled by Trump's lies and not Trump himself, not the person who told them.
B
And I agree. But I, I, I want them all, I want them all prosecuted. I, I want to, I want to ask you an extra dark question, but I want to do it on the other side.
A
All right.
B
Is that okay?
A
Okay. Yeah. I just want to say I do think accountability is a necessary component to bringing the country back.
B
I. I would agree with that.
A
All right. Yeah, we can go behind the paywall.
C
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The Next Level – Episode 1046: Secret Podcast: The Government Keeps Shooting Civilians
Date: January 10, 2026
Hosts: Jonathan V. Last (JVL), Sarah Longwell
Theme: Unfiltered reactions to the recent ICE shooting of an unarmed woman, Renee Good, in Minneapolis, the deeper implications of government use of force, and the official response from political leaders and right-wing media.
This emotionally charged episode opens moments after hosts Sarah Longwell and JVL finish watching the newly released cell phone footage of the shooting of Renee Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis. The conversation is raw, offering immediate, unfiltered reactions. The hosts delve into the incident itself, the political climate that made it possible, the role of misinformation and gaslighting by the Trump administration and conservative media, and the broader implications for American democracy and government accountability.
Immediate Emotional Response:
“There are two different layers of the anger. There is the incident itself, which should never have happened... And then the second layer is that they are lying about all of it.” (01:57)
Critique of ICE Presence & Tactics:
“There is no reason for them to have been there. They are going into communities and they are making them less safe.” (02:55 — Sarah)
Official Narratives & Right-Wing Spin:
“J.D. Vance takes that video... and says, watch this... the reality is that [the officer’s] life was endangered and he fired in self defense. And... I’m really trying to check myself... but it’s not what it makes clear at all.” (04:09 — Sarah)
Victim Characterization & Media Framing:
“Matt Walsh and a lot of these right wingers... keep calling her like a lesbian liberal... because they’re trying to other her… to make her sound radical. No, she’s just an American who saw this thing taking place… she was dropping her kid off at school.” (07:32 — Sarah)
Policy Choices & Recruitment:
“This is a policy choice.... They are just trying to hire as many hostile people as they can and then giving them much less training than a normal officer and then putting them out on the streets...” (10:33 — Sarah)
“Not doing it in red states... there’s a reason these teams of massed government agents are being dispatched to democratically populated areas.” (11:08 — JVL)
Institutional Response & Cover-Up:
“The institutional response to this at every single level... is that nobody there is like holy shit, what have we done?” (13:08 — JVL) “Why would we believe their account of this? ... President United States is lying and, and then the FBI is attempting to impede an investigation...” (14:03 — JVL)
Contrast with Past Responses & Loss of Humanity:
“When Charlie Kirk was murdered we were real clear that we would breach no like celebration... Not only are... big Republican voices... celebrating this death…” (16:42)
Ashley Babbitt Analogy:
“If this is the standard for the use of deadly force, what we see here, then my question is how many people should have been shot by the police on January 6?” (18:34)
Epistemic Breakdown & Gaslighting:
“It makes you feel like you’re taking crazy pills to watch the video and have them tell you something completely as different is happening than what is happening.” (22:47 — Sarah) “Tell us that our eyes are lying to us.” (24:07 — Sarah)
“I want people combing through every single piece of video that was shot... and prosecut[ing] them to the full extent of the law. I don’t care what it costs. I don’t care how backward looking it is…” (25:06 — JVL)
“Accountability is a necessary component to bringing the country back.” (27:24 — Sarah)
“It’s gaslighting… the government lying to us about what is happening." (07:05 — Sarah)
“Their job is to harass and hurt and punish the bad people. Meaning people who didn’t vote for Donald Trump. That’s what this all is. This is like bloody Kansas.” (11:51 — JVL)
“Violence against their enemies is appropriate and acceptable, full stop.” (19:46 — JVL)
“One of the... tenants of limited government conservatism that we were raised on was not to be anti cop, but it certainly was to be suspicious of government power.” (20:56 — Sarah)
This is a raw, impassioned episode that lays bare the hosts' collective outrage at government misuse of force, misinformation, and lack of institutional accountability, using the Renee Good ICE shooting as a flashpoint. The discussion blends immediate emotional reactions with deep political analysis, using memorable analogies and quotes to frame the current climate as a profound test for American values and democracy. For listeners seeking clarity on the event, its context, and why it matters, this episode delivers both the facts and the full weight of their implications.