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PaperclipPerfector  11hr ago (text post)   2090 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 26, 2026

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Should we discuss Signalgate? No, not the time Republican leaders embarrassed themselves by inviting a journalist into their private top secret (almost-literally) group chat. The new and improved Signalgate in Minnesota.

Many people have noted the coordinated nature of the "I'm-not-touching-you" mostly-non-violent stalking and harassing of ICE in Minnesota. I have also noted that included in their list of targets were just random people in the wrong kind of car.

Some conservative journalists and activists have been able gain access and insight to the method of coordination - a massive Signal chat where people divide into different roles and then join training sessions, read a manual, and then go off into the streets to take part in a coordinated effort to prevent ICE from arresting people and with the long term goal of ICE no longer enforcing bipartisan and popular federal law in the city of Minneapolis.

The roles are as follows:

  1. Patrol of various kinds - foot, car, stationary (not sure what a stationary patrol is.) They look out for suspicious people, activity, or vehicles and then notify dispatch. Also join in mobbing once a federal official has been located.
  2. Dispatch - people who assess the information coming from patrols and decide to send people out to harass what they presume are federal agents enforcing federal law.
  3. License plate checker - here is where it gets interesting to me. They have people who are able to check license plates to identify the driver. In the case of a rental car, they are able to identify who rented it. This indicates someone is misusing their access to government databases.
  4. Commuters - Their word for people who stalk what they presume are federal officials or hostile journalists with their cars.
  5. Medics/aftercare - people who help those who have been injured or pepper sprayed for breaching the peace and trying to impede federal officers from enforcing the law.
  6. Donors and others providing material support towards the cause, including providing housing assistance.

Here's where it gets speculative: one of the admins on the group has the Username "Flan Southside" which many suspect is Minnesota Lt. Governor Peggy Flannigan. I'm not sure if there is evidence beyond just the name similarity, but one member of the Signal chat seemed to think (after these rumors became wide spread) that "Flan has been exposed." and the Signal member was going to go to Cuba where they had friends. Of course, by this point, the entire chat could be filled with Right Wingers trolling.

Also, it seems like Good and Pretti (seriously, good and pretty? How does this happen?) were members of the Signal chat and were being coordinated by the Signal Dispatch during their fatal encounters with Homeland Security.

At what point is this no longer just people exercising their first amendment rights? At what point is this a conspiracy to undermine the laws of this country resulting in the deaths of two people ?

The amusing thing to me is that there is an unwritten seventh role on which the whole operation depends, "retard who gets shot." If the operation proceeded as written with everyone playing their roles perfectly, nothing would happen. So some women stand on the opposite side of the street from ICE and blow whistles for a while, so what? This whole system only functions when somebody is stupid enough to get shot. Of course, none of the participants know that, least of all the people that get shot, but it is how it works nonetheless.

The amusing thing to me is that there is an unwritten seventh role on which the whole operation depends, "retard who gets shot." If the operation proceeded as written with everyone playing their roles perfectly, nothing would happen. So some women stand on the opposite side of the street from ICE and blow whistles for a while, so what? This whole system only functions when somebody is stupid enough to get shot. Of course, none of the participants know that, least of all the people that get shot, but it is how it works nonetheless.

Yeah it seems very likely to me that part of the game plan is to goad ICE into killing or seriously harming someone who can be held up as a martyr.

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