From worst of times to even worse: the Trump administration continues to spiral | Sidney Blumenthal

In the winter of despair, it was a day of the vile and a night of the obscene

It was the worst of times and then even worse; it was the age of lies and then more lies; it was an epoch of preening and cowardice. In the winter of despair, it was a day of the vile and a night of the obscene. It was a tale of two films, one featuring the stark killing of a protester on a cold Minneapolis street and the other starring Melania Trump striking poses in a documentary" shown at a private screening at the White House.

Throughout the day of Saturday, 24 January, videos of the killing by ICE agents of Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse at the Veterans Administration hospital, on a street in Minneapolis were broadcast endlessly on TV news channels and seen by tens of millions online. The videos clearly showed Pretti with his phone in his hand, holding his hands up as he approached ICE agents who had pepper-sprayed a woman. He was coming to her aid, a Good Samaritan. The ICE agents instantly attacked him. One frame of a video shows one agent with his gun drawn, pointed at Pretti's back as he fell hands still in the air. Agents appear to have shot him 10 times in five seconds.