By DAVID IGNELL
In the wake of Alex Pretti’s tragic death, I was wrapping up my research for another article on the ongoing Minneapolis crisis when a song drifted into my mind.
It was the rock classic The Pusher, released in 1969 by the band Steppenwolf. The song went on to become the opening score to the iconic counterculture film Easy Rider.
Accompanied by piercing and wailing guitar riffs, the lyrics of The Pusher rail against heroin dealers who “don’t care if you live or if you die.”
The Pusher also offers timeless wisdom:
Oh but the pusher is a monster
Good God, he’s not a natural man.
The dealer for a nickel
Lord, will sell you lots
of sweet dreams
A half century later, Steppenwolf’s description of the pusher man fits not only today’s Big Pharma, but also the Mainstream Media. The MSM deceives, and consequently, people are going out onto the streets and getting themselves killed.
For a nickel, faceless news corporations are selling the American public lots of sweet dreams. They don’t care if you live or if you die.
I said G*d damn, God, G*d damn the pusher man
The dangerous deception of the Pusher in reporting the facts and framing the issues in Minneapolis and other sanctuary cities will cause more tragic bloodshed if the monster isn’t stopped. As I wrote last week, the First Amendment has its limitations, especially where loss of life is concerned.
Categorized under their self-defined umbrella of “peaceful protest” the Pusher doesn’t question the use of ICE tracking apps, coordinated whistles, physical interference with law enforcement, and the threat of deadly force wielded by protestors.
As the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Monday in overturning the ridiculous injunction placed on ICE by a liberal district court judge, “We accessed and viewed the same videos the district court did. What they show is observers and protestors engaging in a wide range of conduct, some of it peaceful but much of it not.”
“The videos underscore how difficult it would be for them [the ICE agents] to decide who has crossed the line: they show a fast-changing mix of peaceful and obstructive conduct, with many protestors getting in officers’ faces and blocking their vehicles as they conduct their activities.”
The Court’s opinion states the obvious from the videos taken shortly before Good and Pretti died: Both were engaged in obstructive conduct against ICE by their own choosing. Both of them ended up dying as a foreseeable consequence of their own behavior.
Yet on the 27th, the day after the 8th Circuit ruling, the Washington Post framed a different narrative that defended Pretti’s actions. One of its articles directed readers to several social media influencers ripping ICE and President Trump for Pretti’s death.
One such influencer was Charlie White, a gamer whose 18-minute profanity laced video the Post had a link to. White labeled Pretti’s death a “100% unjustified killing”, a “murder” and an “execution”. He calls ICE agents “f**king worms”, “a f**king subhuman coward”, and “a brain-dead troglodyte.” White says it is completely indefensible that ICE took Pretti to the ground in the first place and started beating him…all because he was f**king filming and trying to help other people around there.
No Charlie, the videos and still frame you provided clearly show that Pretti acted arrogantly, intentionally got close, and then directly interfered with federal agents trying to do their job. All this while carrying a deadly weapon.
But my beef isn’t with you Charlie. It’s with the Pusher who should know better and has an obligation to the American public to cast its spotlight on the Truth.
I’ve read several articles by the Post about Pretti, but none of them address the issue of what motivated Pretti to enter the ring with a loaded gun? What, if any protection did Pretti feel the gun would give him if he didn’t plan on using it? Was he hoping to intimidate ICE by wearing it, or was he hoping to draw an adverse reaction because of his carry?
According to Pretti’s family, he had been previously injured in a separate encounter with ICE. Did he wear a gun to that incident too or was his decision to carry a reaction to his injury?
These are all relevant and important questions that the Post obscures with comments from his family and friends. The Post quotes a former colleague who said“Pretti was the sweetest, kindest, gentlest soul you ever met.”
This observation begs critical questions. Over time, did the Pusher brainwash Pretti into thinking it was ok for him to go out onto the Minneapolis streets and interfere with ICE operations?
Did the Pusher’s deception transition Pretti from a gentle man into the defiant man who stands toe to toe with the ICE agent in the picture? Is the Pusher responsible for Pretti’s death?
Missing from the Post articles are references to Antifa and anarchist social media influencers like Kyle Wagner, who recently posted a profanity laced video rant, “It’s time to suit up. Boots on the ground…. Show up ready to go. Not talking about peaceful protests anymore… get your f**king guns and stop these f**king people.”
Also missing from the Post articles is the fact this type of violent rhetoric has been circulating around Minneapolis for the past 5 years in the wake of the George Floyd protests.
2020 – “We will not be unarmed when fascists come into our neighborhoods. Community self-defense is not aggression – it is survival.”
2021 – “You cannot have mutual aid without defensive capacity. The state and fascists bring guns – so should we.”
2022 – “Police won’t protect us. We protect us. Train your unit, keep your rifle clean.”
2023 – “Arm the working class – protect the protest lines.”
2024 – “Defense is not offense; antifascists must be armed, trained, and organized” and “This is cold war territory; the Right trains weekly – so must we.” “A rifle in the hands of a comrade is a tool of community survival.”
2025 – “Democracy is an illusion maintained by force – and force is all they respect. We defend our neighborhoods through the same means they understand.” “The people’s right to defense doesn’t end where police jurisdiction begins.”
Also missing from the Post articles are references to statements by Minnesota politicians like Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan who had posted a video on social media a couple weeks earlier, urging her constituents who are “uncool with the fact that our neighbors are being disappeared” to “show up and use your voice, put your body on the line and use non-violent direct action which is one of the most important tools in our toolbox to say I am not ok, I will not go silently into the night. I will join arms…”
Also missing from the Post articles are observations from warfare experts like retired Green Beret Eric Schwalm who posted on X, “What’s unfolding in Minneapolis right now isn’t “protest.” It’s low-level insurgency infrastructure built by people who’ve clearly studied the playbook.“
“This isn’t spontaneous outrage. This is C2 (command and control) with redundancy, OPSEC hygiene, and task organization that would make a SF team sergeant nod in recognition. Replace “ICE agents” with “occupying coalition forces” and the structure maps almost 1:1 to early-stage urban cells we hunted [in Afghanistan] in the mid-2000’s.”
“You’re facing a distributed resistance that’s learned the lessons of successful insurgencies: stay below the kinetic threshold most of the time, force over-reaction when possible, maintain popular support through narrative, and never present a single center of gravity.”
“I spent years training partner forces to dismantle exactly this kind of apparatus. Now pieces of it are standing up in American cities, enabled by elements of local government and civil society. That should keep every thinking American awake at night.”
The icy cauldron of deliberately planned chaos into which our federal agents must descend is courtesy of Antifa, anarchists, liberal politicians, and the Pusher. It’s both alarming and disheartening that it’s come down to ICE or federal troops to restore law and order in parts of America overcome with public corruption. Are corrupt Minnesota politicians deliberately triggering people like Good and Pretti to create a tactical smokescreen?
Actions of the ICE agents who face a daily barrage of “cop triggering” and the words of leaders like Kristi Noem can only be fairly evaluated by American citizen with knowledge of these facts that the Pusher won’t print. ICE agents have been shot at, drug by cars, had their fingers bitten off and mugged. Despite these attacks, liberal judges have issued rulings that lessen the defensive rights of the ICE agents while encouraging interference that is escalating.
The violent rhetoric enabled by the Pusher led to Charlie Kirk’s assassination. Like Pretti, Tyler Robinson had no prior criminal record. Yet influencer White would have us believe that Pretti’s lack of a criminal record indicates he acted reasonably – Pretti was merely a dude in the vicinity with a loaded gun.
Why does the Pusher and its liberal allies focus so much on what Noem said instead of what Pretti did?
It seems perfectly reasonable for Noem to say Pretti “showed up to impede a law enforcement operation”, because that’s exactly what Pretti appeared to do. The defiant look, the close-range camera, the loaded gun, initiating physical contact – the videos give us all a good look into Pretti’s intent. He’s not an innocent bystander swept up by a large crowd. No, he looks and acts like he’s there to make a statement.
Who influenced Pretti to show up that fateful day with a gun and initiate contact with ICE? Was it politicians like Flanagan, anarchists/ANTIFA like Wagner, or a combination of the two? The Pusher doesn’t seem motivated to discern the truth, but rather to frame a deceptive narrative intended to enrage as much as the American public as it can.
Schwalm concluded his X post with this, “History shows these things don’t de-escalate on their own once the infrastructure exists and the cadre believe they’re winning the information war.”
It’s all about the information war. If the Pusher is not on the side of law-abiding Americans, then whose side are they on?
There is so much more to write on this topic, but this is a good stopping point for now. God willing, until next time….
David Ignell was born and raised in Juneau where he currently resides. He formerly practiced law in California state and federal courts and was a volunteer analyst for the California Innocence Project. He is currently a forensic journalist and recently wrote a book on the Alaska Grand Jury.
David Ignell: In Minneapolis, cop-triggering and mayhem have overtaken the city
11 thoughts on “David Ignell: Mainstream media is a drug pusher now”
The mainstream media is only a tool. Its a tool used by the Elect leaders either Democrat and Republican using it to place vulnerable, gullible, and not educated people to get all worked up to create the disorder and chaos the country’s leaders want for an outcome that’ll give them greater power.
If everybody could use their head before emotional reacting they could make different decisions.
Let’s not be biased.
The Republican leaders get their side of supporters all worked up too
Locally we in Anchorage saw them people on the right all worked up swamping Assembly meetings and the front of the Library for protests during 2020-2022. If those people were smarter they will not had wasted their time in the streets and sidewalks marching or dance-offs and disrupting the meetings but gather themselves into groups whom lived where to which districts they lived in and went to the community councils to listen, observe, and learn about the councils and order themselves how to help one another get on to the councils. Our country’s government framers created the most perfect form of government that if the people actually followed it we can actually change the course without revolutions nor civil unrest nor civil war. Peacefully assembling together to take control of our governments most elementary level of government: Community Councils, we can change leaders without much risk of electing tyrannical leaders who used exploited weaknesses and created chaos to unseat tyrannical leaders for quicker results for power.
Yes I’m going to be honest here.
During 2020 to 2022 whether or not if Must Read Alaska and Alaska Watchman If it was Its intention but they were tools in the same light of this topic by Ingram as mainstream media that local leaders on the right used it to rile the Right sided supporters up for the protests that also helped create the social media group Save Anchorage an offshoot tool of Must Read Alaska and Alaska Watchman.
In case Anchorage readers don’t know how to find your community council here is
h ttps://communitycouncils.org/
There is no space between h and ttps
Find your council and starting engaging and taking your neighborhood back. Sometimes too a group of neighbors will have to wait their turn before God lifts them up on to their council. One man I told yesterday if your council is filled with leftist females, those men may have to wait until personal life circumstances makes those women step back but someone has to step up and serve on the seat to represent their district.
A year ago municipal planner was talking about Merginh Tudor Area community council with a neighboring council because that district couldn’t make quorum at meetings. This was an opportunity for a Republican, Conservative, or Christian neighbor of Tudor Area community council to get an easy spot on their council without having to wait.
Just saying people underestimate the power of the community councils. But its government foundation, it’s powered by the people who are ordinary before they become extraordinary looking by election to an Elect office. It’s the most elementary institution where our legislative leaders rose up from the councils.
Alaska and Anchorage I would say are not wise of the Right supporters to give up on and move for more Red states like Florida, Arkansas, Lousiana, Indiana.
Eventhough we are currently controlled across branches and institutions by Democrats. Alaska is an Arctic Nation overflowing with potential that Alaska holds the attention of Global leaders. They all have their eyes north because of the opening of the Arctic waterways. Because we don’t know how to govern ourselves up here, Alaska isn’t living up to its full potential. The people need to learn how to govern themselves if we want to articulate ourselves better how to control the resources of Alaska before global leaders finally start arriving here and make our current leaders look like Kindergartners against High Schoolers Doctorate graduates compared against High Schoolers.
Bottom line I am saying Eventhough one may want to leave Alaska, this time of history is not the right time. Its the right time to get to work staring at the most elementary level of governance serving on your neighborhood council
David Ignell should submit this to ADN and see if they will put this on their “letters to the editor” or Opinion page. If ADN publishes this, then you can say they are maybe still a newspaper and not a liberal blog.
Ducan, I gave up on ADN several years ago. They were my first choice back then and I submitted articles regarding Alaska’s corrupt judicial system to their editor. They had absolutely no interest. IMO they have no interest in the Truth unless it supports their political agenda.
Yet their owner says he is a Republican but paper must be liberal to survive. Can’t be balanced. Why did that family buy the paper then.
There’s quite a few Republicans in Alaska profiting from a corrupt judiciary. They play the game. Its all about the money.
Just look at how Treg Taylor and his Department of Law collaborated with the AK Supreme Court to shut down citizen requested grand jury investigations through Supreme Court Order 1993. Independent Grand jury investigations are bad for corrupt business practices.
David,
How about all of the Democrats who profit from the left-wing Judicial Council and get ABA appointed attorneys to bring more radical left-wing judges to the bench? Corruption works both ways, sir. Democrats use our Judicial system for lawfare as well as to float their woke agenda through the courts.
The “leaders” of the resistance…err insurgency are the elected representatives that daily violate their sworn oaths. The Pusher mentioned above never mentions the fact that these elected representatives are actively and vocally inciting an insurrection against the Constitution(s) that they’ve sworn a public oath to uphold. These “leaders” are more than willing to martyr an average Jane or Joe to further their cause, in fact the more martyrs the better. These tactics are, in many ways, similar to the tactics that Hamas used in Gaza.
Who cares about the death of a violent marxist revolutionary who (in his frame) died a most glorious death.
The genius move on our part would be how to figure out how to lead the rest to such a fate without it impacting us.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.