The Friday Link for 1/30/26

Hi all.

It's been another exhausting week, with the Murder of Alex Pretti and the fallout since. We've had a few glimmers of hope, like Bovino getting canned, but the continued presence of ICE, the arrest of politicians and journalists, the continued rounding up of people due to the color of their skin...disgusting.

Another positive has been the stunning return of protest music, something we will feature today.

Let's start with Bruce Springsteen's 'Streets of Minneapolis,' currently the most popular song in 19 countries. 

The great Billy Bragg has an exceptional protest song, 'City of Heroes.' 

Scared Ketchup has a lovely punk version of a protest song, featuring that great drummer lineup from the Stone Arch Bridge.  It is a smidge adult, so watcher be warned.  Here is 'Ice, F*ck You!'

Local band Durry makes good with their 'I Told You So.' 

The Minnesota State Representative and pretty kick ass singer, Maria Isa, chimed in with 'Que Se Vaya Hielo.'

My good friend Paul Metsa teamed up with Low's Alan Sparhawk to do this protest song, 'No Kings, No Crown.'

And finally, the Marsh Family did a version of San Francisco, updating it for 'Minnesota.' 

The outpouring of support for my city under siege has been overwhelming and has brought me to tears a few times.  Thank you all from the bottom of my heart.

ICE, GET THE F- OUT OF MY STATE!!!

Please make sure you stay up to date on your vaccinations and peace! 

The Bully

This morning, Alex Jeffery Pretti was murdered by ICE agents on Eat Street in south Minneapolis.  He was trying to help some women when an ICE agent pepper-sprayed him.  Then a bunch of agents bum rushed him and gang tackled him.  The firearm he was carrying, legally, with a permit, was removed from his waistband, and then, as Alex's hands were flat on Nicollet Avenue, an ICE agent shot him. Then, other ICE agents, panicking, unloaded their clips into the man. 

He died.

The brutal nature of this execution has made this city numb. As we are trying to process this new hell, DHS and ICE spouted laughable lies that were easily contradicted. Republicans and their media mouthpieces blamed the victim, bad language, Democrats, peaceful protesting, ANYTHING but the men who pulled their triggers and killed Alex Pretti. But as they frantically tried to lay blame at the feet of their political enemies with their curated talking points, the cell phone videos from every direction showed the world the truth. 

The Federal Government executed ANOTHER Minnesotan, just because they were Minnesotan.

After the doom scrolling weighed on me, I took a break and spent the afternoon trying to find something else to think about, but the weight of the occupation of Minnesota was hard to offset.  I served in Nuremberg, Germany, in the Army, and our rules of engagement with the German people were to be polite, courteous, and respectful.  ICE looks at Minnesotans as evil people who need to be controlled, herded, screamed at, pushed, beaten, and shot. I'd say ICE is treating us like we're a war zone, but the rules of engagement in war zones seem FAR more dignified and humane than anything we are seeing in Minnesota today.

Our usual Saturday evening plans involve me going to get some food and my wife and I watching something on television while we eat. This evening, I went to a restaurant in St. Louis Park, made my order, and waited, listening to the conversations going on around me.

"ICE raided the building my offices are in."

"They murdered him in cold blood."

"I guess Democrats with guns need to be murdered, but Republicans with guns are heroes."

"There was an ICE raid across the street from my kids' school."

"They kept cancelling their reservation because with ICE agents in their neighborhood, they were too scared to come out of their house."

And one teenager talking to his dad said, "It's like they want to kill us all."

These are surreal times.  I've never seen anything like this.  I was born in this city, and have lived here most of my life.  I've never been afraid of this city, until ICE got here.  Now I, like most Twin Cities residents, wonder if I'll be the next victim.  Considering the belligerence and lies the people who perpetrated this crime have displayed throughout the day, I see no signs of it stopping soon.

I'm convinced the murder of Alex Jeffery Pretti was intentional.  The day after Minneapolis stood up to the bully and said, YOU DO NOT CONTROL US(!), ICE was looking for retribution, for a way to exert militarized control over Minneapolis. They intentionally escalated the conflict, they attacked a peaceful protester, they ganged up on him like a prison ambush, they disarmed him, THEN they shot him, with other agents emptying their clips into Pretti's body, then one agent applauded, then another agented taunted the crowd by yelling "boo hoo," then ICE (who is an immigration force) had an armed-to-the-teeth riot control force ready to go almost instantly after the murder, then they marched even more troops into the city, while ICE themseves shut down the crime scene, forbidding any local law enforcement from even seeing the site, scouring the crime scene clean, before fleeing back to their lair.

This was intentional.  The bully wanted to threaten us into believing they were still in control. What they really did was show the world they're the undeniable villain.

Minneapolis and Minnesota will never bow to your Nazi-esque tyranny. Trump's forces of evil will NEVER win here.

Minnesotans are far better humans than they'll ever be.

The Friday Link for 1/23/26

Howdy all!

This week, we start with what I feel was one of the funniest bits Saturday Night Live ever came up with: Pete Twinkle and Greg Stink from ESPN Classic.  The concept is simple, take two over the top sports guys from the late 80s, early 90's, have them cover a women's sport they clearly know nothing about, and not only watch them haplessly do play by play on the sport, but have them read live commercials for the event sponsors, which in these cases happens to be women's hygene products.

Why this bit is brilliant is that whoever wrote it understood how real this was.  I started my radio career in 1989, and this was when women's sports were just getting traction for equality in coverage. These sports guys, who had spent their whole careers focusing only on "man sports," had a real hard time switching over to women's sports. Many of them were just like these two...okay, maybe not as over the top, but the combination of wanting to appear like an authority on the sport while at the same time not knowing anything about it, with an undercurrent of resenting even having to cover a women's sport, is spot on. Pete and Greg (a great Jason Sudeikis and Will Forte) capture the angst of that time pretty well.

And I will never forget the actual sports guy I worked with in 1992, doing play-by-play on a women's basketball game, and having to read sponsor ads for a cosmetics sponsor. It was painfully hilarious.  He had no idea what he was talking about, and finally actually said, "They're for you to look pretty." They had to have a talk with him. 

Here are three of them for you.

Also tonight, something is afoul with this animated bit from Make Some Noise.

Finally, a piece I've posted before, but it is so spot on today.

IF YOU ACT LIKE NAZIS, DON'T ACT SHOCKED WHEN PEOPLE CALL YOU A NAZI!

The White House, DHS, DOJ, and ICE should start looking at their own actions instead of trying to shame people, fairly labeling them! 

Make sure you click on 'closed captions' to get the English translation of this.

That's it for tonight.

Make sure to stay up to date on your vaccinations.

Never stop fighting fascism! 

The Friday Link for 1/16/26

Hi all.

It's been a brutal week in Minneapolis. Trump's ICE Gestapo is here, and they are intentionally making everything horrible.  They've executed a woman, shot another person, abused so many people, both citizens and undocumented, and they've constantly lied, no matter what the video evidence shows. 

There are going to be some right-wing protests going on this weekend, and I encourage people to counter-protest peacefully. Watch out for right-wing agitators, people who are trying to start trouble.  If you see someone trying to break the law, film them, grab them, rip off their masks, and make a citizen's arrest! At the very least, make sure you get them on video. 

To try to take your mind off the horrible, let's look at one of the most underrated villains of all time, Clancy Brown's Kurgan from the movie Highlander. 

I remember watching his scenes and how he stole the show. Even still today, there is a perfect level of offset that makes his villain particularly evil.  I also love the design of the character, with his almost lethal cut mark across his neck, made pure classic punk with safety pins. 

Fun fact: Clancy Brown has become an iconic character as he voices Mr. Krabs from the SpongeBob SquarePants cartoon.

Enjoy this scene. 

Up next is a fun video, which some people might consider a little adult.

Rock climbing is a fun sport.  With the cold weather, I'm walking at the Mall of America on a more regular basis, and when you walk around the park, you can see the rock climbing walls with the kids having fun. 

Competitive rock climbing is an incredibly difficult sport requiring an insane amount of hand and grip strength, arm strength, and flexibility.  So the YouTube Channel Mike Boyd Climbs asked an interesting question:  Could a pole dancer, who also has to have incredible grip strength and flexibility, be a good rock climber?  The answer is not only yes, but she ends up being so good at it that she probably could compete. 

Finally, as the sports world turns gets ready to turn away from football and focus more on basketball, let's look back on the greatest era in pro basketball history, the 1980s, and watch 50 of the greatest plays from that decade.

One thing that you should prepare for is how much more physical the game was back then.  They are literally beating the living daylights out of each other the entire game.  I'm not sure a lot of the players from today could take the physical demands of the game back then.  Not saying they are not great players, but the game is so different today. 

That's it for this week! 

Please stay safe, Minnesota.

And make sure you get all your vaccinations.  I just got my latest COVID shot.  You should get yours too!

 

The Friday Link for 1/9/26

Hey everyone.

I just let out a massive sigh.  Welcome to Minneapolis for the first full week of 2026.

I will get to the week, but I desperately want to start with something lighter and more enjoyable. Let's go to the bonus round of the 25,000 Pyramid!

Of all the final rounds in game show history, I think it's my favorite. You have to be very sharp to give the clues, and the last one or two are very hard.  I am not sure I could do it, but here are four examples of how you get it done! 

How about the two fastest rounds ever? I swear, I think these are about equal.  First up is the greatest clue ever for 'Things that Sag.'  For some reason, you have to watch this one on YouTube directly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBsUewuXqMM

And how about Billy Crystal looking about 12 years old when it was still the $20,000 Pyramid. 

That's fun...

(sigh)

An ICE thug committed a public execution in the streets of Minneapolis this week.  He was not in danger.  She was not a terrorist. He wanted to shut up the F- B- (direct quote). He did so by shooting her three times in the face, a white, blonde US Citizen, mother of three, Christian, prize-winning poet. 

Obvious this tragedy is getting covered by everyone, but I really liked Ronny Chieng's recap on The Daily Show. "Some people see a peaceful protester being murdered. And other people are fascists." Perfect! 

(sigh)

Stay safe out there, everyone.  Donald Trump will kill any one of us to keep the Epstein Files off the front page, and his sexually repressed band of anger issue poster children, who put the ICE in INCEL, are more than happy to do it, to make up for their microscopic penises.

Oh, and get vaccinated!

Peace! 

Mastodon, Let's Just Be Friends

Dear Mastodon, 

Hi there!  I want to come clean. You're great and all, but a harsh reality: you're falling WAY behind the rest of the pack...kind of like what happened to the real Mastodons. 

When Elon Musk announced he was buying Twitter in 2022, I, like a lot of people, was hesitant at the time. Twitter was the main social media page for most of us, but Elon had yet to show us how horrible and self-centered he was.  He claimed at the time he would remain neutral politically and would not change Twitter to help Trump and Republicans.

By 2023, it was clear he was lying. He started to turn Twitter into the cesspool it currently is.  I, like many others, started looking for alternatives to Twitter.  I was hearing from multiple people to "try this site," and "try this site." What I ended up doing was starting four new social media pages based on suggestions from friends.

One of them I don't even remember (Hive???).  It was clear within weeks that the site was worthless, and I closed my account very quickly.

The other three were Mastodon, Threads, and BlueSky.

BlueSky didn't start off fast, but within the last year, I have jumped to over 25,000 followers. I really recommend BlueSky as it is a pleasant, fun, positive social experience, and it leans left politically.  There is no reason on the planet that any Democrat should be treating any other social media site with a higher priority than BlueSky. 

Threads was interesting, as initially it looked like it was going to be my biggest audience. I was at about 2500 followers there until November of 2024.  Then, Mark Zuckerberg went to Trump and kissed his ring. IMMEDIATELY I lost hundreds of followers, and my posts no longer seemed to be getting seen.  I've slowly lost followers, resting currently at around 1700, which seems to be the number Threads has set as their "well, if we purge their followers any more, they might shut down their accounts" level. I pick up 25 to 50 followers a day on BlueSky.  Picking up 20 new followers a week on Threads SHOULD be happening. It's not. I'm not sure how much longer I'll be there.

But Mastodon...you've never really connected. I have only picked up 258 followers there in 2 and a half years.  Those 258 are great, and they interact with me regularly, but I only have so much time in the day, and the lack of connection on Mastodon is leading me to have to change.

Well, that and the rise of Substack.  Substack has really taken off, and I am going to give that social media page a chance for a bit.

I'll no longer be posting the litany of posts I've been doing on Mastodon. I will occasionally post something there, but it will be limited.  Also, I probably won't interact too much with the followers there.

I'm not meaning to hurt anyone's feelings. I really appreciate all my followers, but I can no longer justify the time commitment I'm making to Mastodon.

Follow me at these places:

BlueSky - @mattmcneilshow

Facebook - Progressive Citizen X/The Matt McNeil Show

Threads - @matthewemcneil1

Substack - @mattmcneilshow

Feel free to curse me out.  All my best on Mastodon.  PEACE! 

The Friday Link for 1/2/26

Happy New Year, everyone! 

This week (and year), we start with Astro Alexandra, a fantastic YouTuber/TikToker who is a must-follow if you like science and space. Her videos are wonderful, talking about major discoveries in the scientific world, stories that used to get covered in national news media, but today are often ignored.  As I said, I'm a big fan of her videos and shorts, but it was one she did earlier this year on the scientific findings from the asteroid Bennu that was the biggest scientific news of the year, and something that should have been one of the biggest stories of the year as well.  Follow the link to see for yourself (Shorts on YouTube are harder to share, so just follow the link). https://www.youtube.com/shorts/stbcn0QB6C0

Alexandra also seems to be one of the most congenial people ever.  Here is a video of her debunking the multiple conspiracy theories about how the moon landing is fake. I admit that I would probably let out a "You're a bunch of F-ing idiots" in response to these bozos, but Alexandra just keeps knocking them down with a smile and cold, hard facts. 

Next up, a fun video from Antiques Roadshow. This time, they feature 6 items which were found in thrift shops, but ended up being worth quite a bit more money. I had a friend who once found a painting worth a few thousand dollars at Goodwill. I think she spent 2 dollars on it. 

Finally tonight is a nice, easy video from Watch Mojo where they talk about 20 movies that were way ahead of their time, whether that was because of special effects, how they were filmed, or the subject matter they broached (Metropolis, Blade Runner, and Network still stun me for how ahead of their time those movies were).  

This is interesting because I have recently watched two movies which seem to be reactionary to the modern world we are currently in (One Battle After Another, Wake Up Dead Man, both of which are very good), but it is amazing when you get something that is calling their shot from decades in advance. 

Have anice weekend, everyone! 

Make sure you get vaccinated and stay safe!