Tag: Donald Trump

  • Minneapolis, MINNEAPOLIS! by Susu Jeffrey

    Minneapolis, MINNEAPOLIS! by Susu Jeffrey

    Minneapolis, MINNEAPOLIS! 

    The unprecedented ICE surge has the hallmarks of an occupation in some neighborhoods, as masked and heavily armed agents drive around in large SUVs, tussle with protesters and observers, and break into people’s cars and houses to make arrests.  —Axios

    By Susu Jeffrey / Original to Wings of Change / March 2, 2026

    What an honor when The Nation nominated Minneapolis for the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize! The initial butterfly-in-the-stomach thrill dissipated with the thought of what President Trump would do (next) if we got his award. The revenge-dealing, super bully apparently stays awake imagining schemes on his social media site while we make new signs for the next NO KINGS demonstration and grocery lists for shut-in neighbors.

    NO HATE, NO FEAR! IMMIGRANTS ARE WELCOME HERE!
    In Minneapolis hard times make good neighbors. If we want to eat tomatoes or reroof our buildings we need to pay local people willing to do the work. The law of economics requires low wage, compliant workers in Minneapolis like every other American city. We need childcare, eldercare, healthcare, farm workers, meat packers, independent restaurants and all the oil that lubricates western society where the dream of a richer future is the hook.

    The Americana rainbow of Minneapolis is like “Eat Street,” (Nicollet Avenue and 26th Street) where Alex Pretti was shot to death by federal agents. My favorite restaurant is across the street from the people’s Alex Pretti memorial. They serve Vietnamese pho soup and cream cheese wontons or you could go donuts-coffee and local bands, Mexican, Vietnamese-French-bread sandwiches, Greek, Middle East, Malaysian, pizza or burgers and fries. Minneapolis has the population of a stew, a toothsome mix of ingredients harmonizing in one pot.

    Why Minneapolis?

    Why did President Trump decide to sic ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and Border Control (Customs and Border Control) on the Twin Cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul? Minnesota is the state that ranks 28th among the 50 United States hosting “illegal aliens”? Trump has a perfect zero political success rating here; he does not study history (for example George Floyd) and he has difficulty separating his ego from reality.

    Since the 1934 truckers strike where two people were shot dead by zealous enforcers (sound familiar) the Minneapolis model of citizen support for everyday people’s rights has echoed across the nation. The appalling executions of Renee Good and Alex Pretti caused Gov. Tim Walz to label the president’s agents “untrained, aggressive” and noted that Trump “picked the wrong state to make an example of.” (CBS nightly news). This comment from the vice-presidential candidate who charmed his way through the 2024 campaign like a fatherly and practical human being who doesn’t lie.

    Part of the Minneapolis social scene is political activism. Minneapolis-based peace groups were associated with the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize nomination for the Campaign to Ban Landmines and the 2017 prize to ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.

    Furthermore Minnesota has the highest voter turnout in the nation. The midterm elections are coming up in November this year. Statistically the president’s party loses congressional seats in the midterms.

    Since December 1, 2025, the 3,000 Gestapo agents of Operation Metro Surge made 4,000 arrests (they had a 2,000 per day quota) which the existing incarceration and judicial systems could not process. Among the innocent victims were two Native American children (to which rez would they be extradited), 5-year-old Liam Ramos in his blue bunny hat, and an Asian man wearing handcuffs, boxer shorts and plastic slip-on shoes in minus 9-degree weather who lived in a house formerly occupied by a man already in prison.

    ICE Agent Who Shot Renee Good Self-Deports

    Jonathan Ross and his second wife
    Image: Daily Mail

     

     

    Masked agents remove several large storsge boxes from Jonathan Ross home
    Masked agents move household items from the Ross home. Image: Daily Mail

     

    Agent Ross, 43, of Chaska, Minnesota, an upscale southwest Minneapolis suburb, fled his half-million-dollar home with his family after shooting Renee Good to death on January 7. He was quickly identified. Two nights after Ross killed Renee Good a Special Response Team in masks was seen removing boxes including electronics and family photos from Ross’s home. Ross told neighbors he was a biologist. Neighbors described him as a hardcore MAGA supporter. His father labelled him a “conservative Christian.”

    The last words Renee Good spoke was to tell Ross “I’m not mad at you” while he circled her car making a video. Then there were shots and Ross is heard saying “f—ing bitch.”

    Renee_Good_DHS_agent_perspective

    Renee as captured by Ross’s camera just before he executed her. Image Wikipedia

    “They had guns. We had whistles,” said Renee Good’s widow.

    On the night of February 17 the Renee Good sidewalk flower bedecked memorial between 33rd and 34th Streets on Portland Avenue South was sprinkled with gasoline and set afire. A volunteer night guard discouraged the arson vandals, preventing damage from spreading.

    Church, State, Media and the Public React

    Catholic Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin of Newark, New Jersey called ICE a “lawless organization” and remarked on the importance of human dignity in a televised Christiane Amanpour interview. Pope Leo XIV urged people to “fast from violent language,” especially during Lent and Ramadan.

    National Public Radio’s 1A program (1-1-2026) noted the frequency of the president’s people “ignoring judicial orders. The Trump administration doesn’t follow laws they don’t like.”

    So pooh-pooh to the laws of God and the State. Still, most of us await the arrests of Jonathan Ross and Texas-based Border Patrol agents Jesus Ochoa, 43, and Raymundo Gutierez, 35, for the first-degree murders (intentional killing) of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

    What is To Be Done?

    Vote.

    ICE’s budget has metastasized from $10 billion to $85 billion. “They have the kind of budget you would give to a standing army to fight an actual war,” David Miller wrote on Facebook. Miller advocates “neighborism.”

    Congress controls the budget, “the power of the purse.” Congress can also impeach. Trump was impeached twice during his first term.

    First Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives for “incitement of insurrection” of the January 7th rebellion in and around the Capitol building which was thoroughly filmed. However our 100 U.S. senators failed to reach the required 66 votes getting just 57 votes for inciting an insurrection.

    Then the state of Georgia impeached Trump for his post-election interference: “I just want to find 11,780 votes….” But that effort was dismissed by the Department of Justice  policy of avoiding to prosecute a sitting president.

    On January 28, 2026, the FBI seized those 2020 ballots from the Biden/Trump Fulton County Georgia elections warehouse even though they had been counted and recounted three times, by hand and by machine. Trump’s inability to accept his failed reelection bid bodes ill for the upcoming 2026 midterm elections. It is a nutter world when black and white paper proof translates into Alice in Wonderland technicolor.

    In reality it’s another practice run by Trump at not believing our lying eyes. Here are the videos, here are the ballots. Minnesota is a voting state. Voting is a form of neighborism.

    It feels good to vote, especially in overwhelming numbers, and you get one of those little red I VOTED stickers.

    Voting feels like I-AM-DOING-SOMETHING:

    I AM — SOMEBODY (A chant made famous by Jesse Jackson)

    It is the next step after 100,000 people marched against Operation Metro “Siege.” The crowd was so dense an American flag-carrying friend said it almost felt claustrophobic.

    The comb-overs, Trump, Putin and Netanyahu, plan to divide up the world with their bombs and guys in masks with guns. Look again at those old men hiding their shiny pates, white-knuckled trying to hold onto their fictions. America has been multicultural since the Vikings and the Conquistadores invaded. What would baseball be without immigrants?

    George  Floyd, Renee Good, Alex Pretti

    George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis policeman Derek Chauvin put him in prison for 22.5 years and that was for “unintentional” murder, murder two. The murder one, intentional killings using three bullets for Renee Good and nine or ten bullets to execute Alex Pretti are proof of intention.

    “Democracy is stronger than fear,” says Minnesota state Sen. John Hoffman, who survived an eight-bullet assassination attempt. Hoffman has just returned to his seat in the state capitol.



    Wings of Change is entirely reader supported.
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    In this critical time hearing voices of truth is all the more important although censorship and attacks on truth-tellers are common. Support WingsofChange.me as we bring you important articles and journalism beyond the mainstream corporate media on the Wings of Change website and Rise Up Times on social media. Donate now to sustain Wings of Change.

    Access is always free, but if you would like to help:
    A donation of $25 or whatever you can donate will bring you articles and opinions from independent websites, writers, and journalists as well as a blog with the opinions and creative contributions by myself and others.

    Join us on Wings of Change

    We still have much work to continue to do as many activists and organizations address current threats to our democracy and unjust actions against people of color and are making plans for the upcoming years. Wings of Change is a part of that work through education, information, and inspiration. Here in Minnesota we are particularly targeted by the Trump regime with ICE immigrant law enforcement illegally arresting and deporting our neighbors who are mostly people of color. In spite of promises to withdraw ICE, the arrests continue. Other cities have been targeted as well, and they will try to target more to fill the detention centers they are building all over the country.

    Sue Ann Martinson, Editor Wings of Change

    “We don’t have to engage in grand, heroic actions
    to participate in the process of change.
    Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people,
    can transform the world.”

    — Howard Zinn

  • Nobel Prize-Winning Economist Joseph Stiglitz Slams Trump’s Myths About Tariffs, Affordability

    Nobel Prize-Winning Economist Joseph Stiglitz Slams Trump’s Myths About Tariffs, Affordability

    Nobel Prize-Winning Economist Debunks President Trump’s Tariffs

    Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz responds to Donald Trump’s State of the Union address on Tuesday, when the president repeatedly touted his tariffs as saving the country money and boosting the economy. Stiglitz says Trump’s “lies” about tariffs can’t erase the truth about how they have raised costs for most U.S. residents. “It is estimated the average family is paying somewhere between $1,000 and $1,700 in extra money because of the tariffs,” says Stiglitz. “His policies have failed.”

    Transcript

    This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

    This is Democracy Now!Democracynow.org, the War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. During his State of the Union, President Trump repeatedly hailed his economic record over the past year. He also openly criticized the Supreme Court again for striking down his global tariffs in a decision that’s having major implications on the global economy. Less than half, four of the nine Supreme Court justices, attended the speech. This is part of what Trump said.

    PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Everything was working well. Countries that were ripping us off for decades are now paying us hundreds of billions of dollars. They were ripping us so badly, you all know that. Everybody knows it. Even the Democrats know it, they just don’t want to say it. And yet these countries are now happy and so are we. We made deals. The deals are all done and they’re happy. They’re not making money like they used to but we’re making a lot of money. There was no inflation, tremendous growth. And the big story was how Donald Trump called the economy correctly and 22 Nobel Prize winners in economics didn’t. They got it totally wrong. They got it really wrong. And then just four days ago, an unfortunate ruling from the United States Supreme Court, it just came down. It came down.

    PEOPLE: [applause]

    PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Very unfortunate ruling.

    PEOPLE: [cheers and applause]

    PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: But the good news is that almost all countries and corporations want to keep the deal that they already made. Right, Scott? Knowing that the legal power that I as president have to make a new deal could be far worse for them. And therefore, they will continue to work along the same successful path that we had negotiated before the Supreme Court’s unfortunate involvement.

    So despite the disappointing ruling, these powerful country-saving — it’s saving our country, the kind of money we’re taking in — peace-protecting — many of the wars I settled was because of the threat of tariffs, I wouldn’t have been able to settle them without — will remain in place under fully approved and tested alternative legal statutes, and they have been tested for a long time — they’re a little more complex but they’re actually probably better — leading to a solution that will be even stronger than before.

    Congressional action will not be necessary. It’s already time-tested and approved. And as time goes by, I believe the tariffs, paid for by foreign countries, will like in the past substantially replace the modern-day system of income tax, taking a great financial burden off the people that I love.

    PEOPLE: [applause]

    AMY GOODMAN: We are joined now by Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize-winning economist, Columbia University professor, former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers. Professor Stiglitz is also currently the chief economist of the Roosevelt Institute. His latest book just out in paperback this week, The Road to Freedom: Economics and the Good Society.

    Professor Stiglitz, welcome back to Democracy Now! Your response? You were among the signatories, the economists who have signed a letter against the tariffs. Talk about the president’s State of the Union and his argument for tariffs and against the Supreme Court. Two of his own appointees ruled against him.

    JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, the speech was characteristic of Trump — lies, misleading statements.
    I was with a group of a large number of Nobel Prize winners who predicted that he would be bad for the economy and we were right. The tariffs are paid by Americans. They’re not paid for by the foreigners. He says they didn’t have any effect on inflation. We saw inflation was going down, and if we compare where inflation would have been with where we are today, it is estimated the average family is paying somewhere between $1,000 and $1,700 in extra money because of the tariffs.

    The irony is he said it was going to bring back manufacturing jobs. Manufacturing jobs are down in the United States in 2025 when they were up under President Biden. He doesn’t talk about that. In fact, last year was one of the slowest growth in jobs ever in recent memory, about a quarter of what it was under President Biden. And interestingly, most or more than 100% of the jobs that were created were in the healthcare sector, nothing to do with his tariffs at all.

    AMY GOODMAN: Trump said in the past, “We have the most people working in history.” What is the state of unemployment, of livable employment, the overall economy?

    JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, when the economy — more people in the country? Yes, there are going to be more people working. That’s true. The fact is that labor force participation has not gone up. The unemployment rate has gone up a little bit, not a lot. But what is striking is how weak the job market is. As I said before, we have not created very many jobs, less than a quarter of what we had created under President Biden. And anybody with friends trying to get jobs knows what a difficult labor market today’s labor market is.

    AMY GOODMAN: I want to go back to President Trump speaking last night.

    PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Now the same people in this chamber who voted for those disasters suddenly use the word “affordability,” a word — they just used it, somebody gave it to them — knowing full well that they caused and created the increased prices that all of our citizens had to endure. You caused that problem. You caused that problem.

    AMY GOODMAN: “Affordability,” Professor Stiglitz. We are speaking to you here in New York. Of course the new mayor Zohran Mamdani sent the message to people all over the country, especially those who are considering elected office or to diehard politicians, senators, congressmembers, that affordability was the word, was the issue people are most concerned about. What about President Trump mocking it?

    JOSEPH STIGLITZ: I think he is mocking the American people when he mocks the issue of affordability. The reason people worry about affordability is things are not affordable. And the other way of putting it is that their real incomes adjusted for inflation are down. Now, one of the striking things about what President Trump has done, he talked about this tax cut, the biggest tax cut in history. He was wrong about that. As a percentage of GDP, it doesn’t even rank near the top.

    But where it does rank at the top is that it was the most regressive tax cut. That is to say the benefits went to the millionaires, the billionaires, the corporations, and those at the bottom paid the price. They paid the price with almost a $1 trillion cut in Medicaid. That was why the Democrats had insisted on the government shutdown. They said, “You can’t do that! That’s not right!” That you would be giving a tax cut for billionaires and asking the poorest Americans not to have adequate healthcare in a country where healthcare has been so bad, so bad that life expectancy even before the pandemic was on the down.

    AMY GOODMAN: Your final comments, Professor Stiglitz, coming off of what’s considered one of the longest State of the Unions, an assessment of this country, in modern history?

    JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, long speeches like that reminds me of Castro and other demagogues who just love — they get the platform and they just talk and talk and talk. But I think the striking thing is that in spite of the tariffs that were supposed to bring back manufacturing jobs, manufacturing jobs are actually down. And in spite of the tariffs that were supposed to eliminate the huge trade deficit in goods, the trade deficit in goods is actually up. So his policies have failed even in the areas where he — in the objectives that he set forth. So, yes, his speech was filled with misleading statements, with lies. We’ve come to expect that. But in the core aspect of his agenda, the numbers show that he has dramatically failed to do what he promised.

    AMY GOODMAN: Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize-winning economist, Columbia University professor, and former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers. Professor Stiglitz is also currently the chief economist of the Roosevelt Institute. His new book just out in paperback this week, The Road to Freedom: Economics and the Good Society.

    The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

    Next story from this daily show

    Rep. Summer Lee on Boycotting Trump Speech, Jesse Jackson, Voting Rights, “Endless Wars” & More


    Wings of Change is entirely reader supported.
    Wings invites you to subscribe.
    To subscribe: Join us on Wings of Change

    In this critical time hearing voices of truth is all the more important although censorship and attacks on truth-tellers are common. Support WingsofChange.me as we bring you important articles and journalism beyond the mainstream corporate media on the Wings of Change website and Rise Up Times on social media. Donate now to sustain Wings of Change.

    Access is always free, but if you would like to help:
    A donation of $25 or whatever you can donate will bring you articles and opinions from independent websites, writers, and journalists as well as a blog with the opinions and creative contributions by myself and others.

    Join us on Wings of Change

    We still have much work to continue to do as many activists and organizations address current threats to our democracy and unjust actions against people of color and activists and make plans for the upcoming years. Wings of Change is a part of that work through education, information, and inspiration. Here in Minnesota we are particularly targeted by the Trump regime with ICE immigrant law enforcement illegally arresting and deporting our neighbors who are mostly people of color. In spite of promises to withdraw ICE, the arrests continue. Other cities have been targeted as well, and they will try to target more.

    Sue Ann Martinson, Editor Wings of Change

    “We don’t have to engage in grand, heroic actions
    to participate in the process of change.
    Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people,
    can transform the world.”

    — Howard Zinn

  • Democracy Now! ENDANGERMENT FINDING: Trump’s EPA Guts Key Rule

    Democracy Now! ENDANGERMENT FINDING: Trump’s EPA Guts Key Rule

    Democracy Now! February 11, 2026

    In a victory for the fossil fuel industry, a set of Obama-era rules that required the federal government to regulate the emissions of six greenhouse gases is being reversed by the Trump administration. The changes would undo the legal basis of the fight against global warming, as well as remove industrial reporting obligations and roll back emissions standards for cars and trucks. Environmental engineer Gretchen Goldman helped author those emission standards while working for the Department of Transportation under the Biden administration. Now as the president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, she says their repeal will not only increase what drivers pay at the pump but also set U.S. innovation back on the world stage. “We’re really seeing the abdication of U.S. leadership on climate, and that has huge implications, both for our immediate ability to reduce heat-trapping emissions globally. . .but also in terms of our standing and contribution in the world.”

    Transcript

    This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

    AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.

    We turn now to the Trump administration’s sweeping rollback of climate change policy. On Thursday, the Environmental Protection Agency plans to overturn its own conclusion that greenhouse gases endanger public health and cause global warming. Known as the endangerment finding, the Obama-era rules from 2009 required the federal government to regulate the emissions of six gases, including carbon monoxide and methane, which are released from the burning of oil, gas and coal. The Trump administration’s reversal of this decision would undo the legal basis of the fight against global warming and remove emissions standards for cars and trucks and reporting on obligations for power plants and industries. The EPA’s draft version the new rule says the endangerment finding overstated the risk of heat waves and underplayed the benefits of increased carbon pollution.

    In a post on X on Tuesday, the EPA Secretary Lee Zeldin wrote, quote, “This week, we make history. Getting ready to join President Trump to announce the single largest act of deregulation in the history of the USA,” unquote.

    For more, we go to Washington, D.C., where we’re joined by Gretchen Goldman, president and CEO of the Union of Concerned Scientists, also an environmental engineer, formerly worked on environmental policy in the Biden White House and at the Department of Transportation.

    Gretchen, thanks so much for being with us. Talk about the significance of what’s happening now.

    GRETCHEN GOLDMAN: It’s quite significant, and it was quite devastating to see, even though we expected that this was coming. The impacts of this action will be vast, both in terms of our immediate ability to protect people from the harms of climate change, economic harms, health harms, and also in terms of our ability to meet U.S. climate goals, to meet global climate goals.

    And this is all happening with time that we don’t have. We know we need to swiftly and dramatically reduce heat-trapping gas emissions now, as year after year we see devastating harm from climate-driven extreme weather events. And this is now something we really need to take action on, and so it’s quite devastating to see this week.

    AMY GOODMAN: The Trump administration initially attempted to undermine the science behind the endangerment finding. And again, for people to understand, explain exactly what that is and what that report was, based at the Department of Energy.

    GRETCHEN GOLDMAN: As part of their broader attacks on climate science and climate action, the Trump administration secretly convened a group of climate contrarians under the Department of Energy to produce a report that reiterated many of the long-debunked climate denial talking points and tried to pass it off as a science-based report. We won in court, the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Environmental Defense Fund together. We won, and the administration disbanded that group of climate contrarians and have had to turn over more than 100,000 pages of documents related to that. We’re seeing that they are being slowed down by these efforts and our ability to push back.

    AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about President Trump’s personal connections to fossil fuel executives and how exactly that is affecting what is expected to be announced on Thursday, again, what many are calling the single — including Zeldin, the single biggest attack in U.S. history on federal authority to tackle the climate crisis? He calls it the single largest deregulation act in U.S. history.

    GRETCHEN GOLDMAN: This is their holy grail. They’ve been focused on this for a long time, because the reality of climate change and its impacts are very inconvenient if you’re someone who wants to give handouts to the fossil fuel industry and wants to ensure that these industries can continue polluting communities across the country. And so, we’re seeing them really take steps to give handouts to connections to the fossil fuel industry and others. And that’s harming communities, especially Black and Brown communities, where we know already face disproportionate impacts and harms from toxic air pollution.

    AMY GOODMAN: This comes a month after President Trump pulled the U.S. out of the UNFCCC — right? — the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Talk about the significance of these two acts together.

    GRETCHEN GOLDMAN: We’re really seeing the abdication of U.S. leadership on climate, and that has huge implications, both for our immediate ability to reduce heat-trapping emissions globally, as we know is desperately needed, but also in terms of our standing and contribution in the world. The U.S. has long exhibited climate leadership in terms of innovation, in terms of reduction in emissions and in terms of providing that urgency around what we need to do to take action on climate change. And this, unfortunately, is going to set us back a long time in terms of that diplomacy, those international relationships and the U.S.’s ability to help lead the world in taking action on climate change.

    AMY GOODMAN: Karoline Leavitt, the White House press spokesperson, emphasized auto standards being an area where regulation will be rolled back. You used to work, Gretchen Goldman, at the Department of Transportation. Can you talk about emissions standards and what’s been achieved by these standards, and the incredible effect of a rollback?

    GRETCHEN GOLDMAN: I was at the Department of Transportation working on climate and transportation issues, and so this is very devastating to me personally, as well. Under the previous administration, we issued the strongest standards to reduce dependence of cars and trucks on fossil fuel, and this was saving people money at the pump. It was helping us with climate emissions reductions, and it was reducing toxic air pollution in communities. It was one of the strongest climate actions that this nation has taken. But now, tomorrow, it’s expected to be announced that they’re repealing those standards, and that’s going to set us back. It’s going to cost consumers more money, and it’s really going to stifle innovation and our ability to meet the moment and reduce climate emissions everywhere.

    AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you very much for being with us, Gretchen Goldman, president and CEO of the Union of Concerned Scientists, speaking to us from Washington, D.C.

    RELATED

    “Destroying Knowledge”: Michael Mann on Trump’s Dismantling of Key Climate Center in Colorado


    On Monday, February 23rd, once again, Democracy Now! will be celebrating our 30th anniversary at the historic Riverside Church here in New York City. Guests will include Angela Davis and Naomi Klein; Maria Ressa, the journalist who won the Nobel Peace Prize; Michael Stipe, the singer, the songwriter, the activist; the jazz legend Wynton Marsalis; the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Mosab Abu Toha; V., the renowned playwright; Hurray for the Riff Raff; and so many more. Go to democracynow.org for details and to get tickets. The seats are filling up fast.

    The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.


    From Al Jazeera: Trump Climate Rollback



    Wings of Change is entirely reader supported.
    Wings invites you to subscribe.
    Join us on Wings of Change

    In this critical time hearing voices of truth is all the more important although censorship and attacks on truth-tellers are common. Support WingsofChange.me as we bring you important articles and journalism beyond the mainstream corporate media on the Wings of Change website and Rise Up Times on social media.

     Join us on Wings of Change. We still have much work to continue to do as many activists and organizations address current threats to our democracy and unjust actions against people of color and activists and make plans for the upcoming years. Wings of Change is pleased and excited to be a part of that work through education, information, and inspiration. Here in Minnesota we are particularly  targeted by the Trump regime with ICE immigrant law enforcement illegally arresting and deporting our neighbors who are mostly people of color.  

    Access is always free, but if you would like to help:
    A donation of $25 or whatever you can donate will bring you articles and opinions from independent websites, writers, and journalists as well as a blog with the opinions and creative contributions by myself and others

    Sue Ann Martinson, Editor Wings of Change

    “We don’t have to engage in grand, heroic actions
    to participate in the process of change.
    Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people,
    can transform the world.”

    — Howard Zinn

  • Robert Reich: On War

    Robert Reich: On War

    Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more

    Trump’s War Footing

    His foreign and domestic policies are becoming one and the same, and their purpose isn’t complicated.

    Friends,

    At the same time agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol are swarming into Minnesota and other states and cities, Trump is planning bombing raids on other countries.

    Domestically and internationally, he is putting America on a war footing.

    ICE is reportedly investing $100 million on what it calls “wartime recruitment” of 10,000 new agents, in addition to the 20,000 already employed. Its recruitment is targeting gun and military enthusiasts, people who listen to right-wing radio, who have gone to Ultimate Fighting Championship fights or shopped for guns and tactical gear, live near military bases, and attend NASCAR races. It’s calling for recruits willing to perform their “sacred duty” and “defend the homeland” by repelling “foreign invaders.”

    Meanwhile, Trump has announced that he’ll ask Congress for a $1.5 trillion defense budget for the next fiscal year — a 66 percent increase over the 2026 defense budget Congress just authorized.

    There’s coming to be no difference between Trump’s foreign and domestic policies.

    Both are based on the same eight maniacal ideas:

    (1) Might makes right.

    (2) Law is irrelevant.

    (3) America is at war with the world’s “radical left,” who are defined chiefly by their opposition to Trump.

    (4) Fear and force are better weapons in this war than hope and compromise.

    (5) The U.S. stock market is the best measure of Trump’s success.

    (6) Personal enrichment by Trump and other officials is justified in pursuit of victory.

    (7) So are lies, cover-ups, and the illegal use of force. (Trump is invincible and omnipotent.)

    These ideas are at such fundamental odds with the norms most of us share about what America is all about and how a president should think and behave that it’s difficult to accept that Trump believes them or that his White House thugs eagerly endorse them. But he does, and they do.

    Rather than some “doctrine” or set of principles, they’re more like guttural discharges. Trump is not rational, and the people around him trying to give him a patina of rationality — his White House assistants and spokespeople — surely know it.

    The media tries to confer on Trump a coherence that evaporates almost as soon as it’s stated. The New York Times’s breathless coverage of its recent Oval Office interview with Trump — describing his “many faces” — is a model of such a vapidity.

    According to the Times, Trump “took unpredictable turns” during the interview. But instead of seeing this unpredictability as a symptom of Trump’s diminishing capacities and ever-shorter attention span, the Times reported it as “a tactic he embraces as president, particularly on the world stage. If no one knows what you might do, they often do what you want them to do.”

    Attempts to show inconsistencies or hypocrisies in Trump’s domestic or foreign policies are fruitless because they have no consistency or truthfulness to begin with.

    Nor is it possible for the media to describe a “big picture” of America and the world under Trump because there is nothing to picture other than his malignant, impulsive, unbridled grandiosity all the way up and all the way down.

    Trump has unleashed violence on America’s streets for much the same reason he has unleashed violence on Latin America and is planning to unleash it elsewhere: to display his own strength. His motive is to gain more power and, along the way, more wealth. (On Sunday, he even posted an image referring to himself as the “Acting President of Venezuela.”)

    “Policy” implies thought. But under Trump, there is no domestic or foreign policy because it is all thoughtless. It is not even improvised. It is just Trump’s ego — as interpreted by the toadies around him (Miller, Vought, Vance, Kennedy, Rubio, Noem) trying to guess what his ego craves or detests, or fulfilling their own fanatical goals by manipulating it.

    We must stop trying to make rational sense out of what Trump is doing. He is a ruthless dictator, plan and simple.

    All analyses of what is happening — all reporting, all efforts to understand, all attempts at strategizing — are doomed. The only reality is that an increasingly dangerous and irrational sociopath is now exercising brutal and unconstrained power over America and, hence, the world.

    Trump is putting America on a war footing because war is good for him as it is for all dictators.

    War confers emergency powers. It justifies ignoring the niceties of elections. It allows dictators to imprison and intimidate opponents and enemies. It enables them to create their own personal slush funds. It distracts the public from other things (remember Jeffrey Epstein?).

    War gives dictators like Trump more power and more wealth. Period.

    What are your thoughts? TO robertreich@gmail.com


    RELATED

    America’s Gestapo

    What you can do to stop ICE’s mayhem




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    Please join me on Wings of Change. It’s only the beginning as we still have so much work to continue to do as many activists and organizations address current threats to our democracy and unjust actions against people of color and activists and make plans for the upcoming years. Wings of Change is pleased and excited to be a part of that work through education, information, and inspiration.

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    “We don’t have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world.”
    — Howard Zinn

  • Update: Trump Declares Emergency Powers as Republicans Push Back | George Will

    Update: Trump Declares Emergency Powers as Republicans Push Back | George Will

    UPDATE JANUARY 12, 2026

    The Supreme Court has refused to grant Trump total immunity. Discussion of what this action means and how it stands with the US Constitution and its effect on democracy in a bipartisan ruling.

    Something unusual is happening inside Washington — and it’s not coming from the opposition. In this video, we break down the growing internal revolt inside the Republican Party as lawmakers begin pushing back against Donald Trump’s expanding use of power.

    Something unusual is happening inside Washington — and it’s not coming from the opposition. In this video, we break down the growing internal revolt inside the Republican Party as lawmakers begin pushing back against Donald Trump’s expanding use of power. From emergency declarations to congressional resistance, this is a behind-the-scenes political showdown that goes far beyond daily headlines.This analysis explores why Republican senators are drawing new lines, how constitutional checks like the War Powers framework are suddenly back in focus, and what this moment reveals about leadership, authority, and accountability in modern American politics. Rather than partisan outrage, this video focuses on process, power, and the long-term consequences for governance.


     “In the end there is no democracy without informed citizens, no justice without a language critical of injustice, and no change without a broad-based movement of collective resistance.”

    —Henry Giroux


    RELATED



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  • DN! Special Report on Venezuela: U.S. Abducts Maduro, Trump Says “We Are Going to Run” Oil-Rich Nation

    DN! Special Report on Venezuela: U.S. Abducts Maduro, Trump Says “We Are Going to Run” Oil-Rich Nation

    Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez host breaking news coverage on U.S. forces attacking Venezuela and seizing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

    We speak to Venezuelan reporter Andreína Chávez in Caracas as well as professors Miguel Tinker Salas and Alejandro Velasco.

    RELATED

    Glenn Greenwald: Trump Bombs Venezuela, Removes Maduro

    “The Money They Stole” –Troops are banging at the door –Will they dare to start a war? –Venezuela faces its gravest hour –Since Bolivar fought the Spanish power –Fishermen have been burned and drowned –By orders of a man donning a crown –Peddling sinister fentanyl lies –Posting snuff films of the people who die –And if you wonder what’s the empire’s goal –Just follow the money they stole . . .



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  • Donald Trump talks peace but he is a man of war, by Simon Tisdall

    Donald Trump talks peace but he is a man of war, by Simon Tisdall

    Today an illegal coup in Venezuela, but where next? Donald Trump talks peace but he is a man of war.

    / The Guardian / January 3, 2026

    ‘This is the world we now live in – the world according to Donald Trump.’  Photograph: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

    The world will be anxious, and rightly so. For a man so bent on a peace prize, Trump appears to revel in conflict.

    The overthrow and reported capture by invading US forces of Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela’s hardline socialist president, will send a shiver of fear and consternation around the world. The coup is illegal, unprovoked and regionally and globally destabilising. It upends international norms, ignores sovereign territorial rights, and potentially creates an anarchic situation inside Venezuela itself.

    It is chaos made policy. But this is the world we now live in – the world according to Donald Trump.

    The direct attack on Venezuela marks an extraordinary, dangerous assertion of unfettered US power and comes in the same week that Trump threatened military strikes against another unpopular anti-western regime: that of Iran. It follows months of escalating US military, economic and political pressure on Maduro, including lethal maritime attacks on the boats of alleged drug traffickers.

    Trump claims to be acting to prevent illegal narcotics flowing into the US via Venezuela and to halt an alleged influx of “criminal” migrants. In an echo of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, he is also accused of coveting Venezuela’s huge oil and gas resources – suspicions reinforced by repeated, illegal US seizures of Venezuelan oil tankers.

    But Trump’s primary motives appear to be personal animosity directed at Maduro, and a desire to revive the 19th-century Monroe doctrine by creating a US sphere of influence and dominance throughout the west.

    Regional leaders, including Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, who has clashed with Trump in recent months, greeted the coup with outrage and alarm; not least, perhaps, because they fear they too could become victims of Washington’s aggressive new hegemony. Cuba’s leftwing government has particular cause for concern. It relies heavily on Venezuela’s regime for cheap energy and political and economic support.

    Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, has made no secret of his wish to see regime change in Havana. In Panama, too, anxiety levels will be running high. Trump has previously threatened military action there, over control of the Panama canal. Indeed, the reported capture of Maduro recalls the 1989 US invasion of Panama and the toppling and arrest of its then dictator, Manuel Noriega.

    Authoritarian, anti-democratic regimes around the world will be carefully watching Trump’s next steps, as will Washington’s democratic allies. Iran condemned the coup. It has good reason to be fearful. But Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, may not be totally displeased by the defenestration of his Venezuelan ally.

    Trump’s unprovoked resort to violence is not so very different from Putin’s actions in invading Ukraine. Both have illegally attacked a neighbouring country and sought to remove its leadership. For China’s Xi Jinping, whose forces were last week practising military action against the “separatists” of Taiwan, Trump has just set a precedent he may one day gladly follow.

    Trump’s coup is of great concern to Britain, the EU and western democracies. They should, and must, unequivocally condemn it. It directly challenges the rules and principles of the international order they hold dear. The US has once again ignored the UN and traditional methods of addressing inter-state grievances. And it is acting with apparently scant regard or thought for what happens next in Venezuela.

    The Caracas government has been decapitated, but other senior members of the regime appear still to be in place. They are urging resistance and, potentially, retaliation against the US. There are unconfirmed reports of civilian casualties. If a power vacuum develops, public order could collapse, sparking civil war or a possible military coup. And it is unclear whether the latest US military action has ended, or may escalate further.

    The idea that exiled opposition leaders, such as the 2025 Nobel peace prizewinner María Corina Machado, will swiftly return and that full democracy will now be restored is naive. The coming days will be critical. And it’s all down to Trump.

    Trump’s reckless action should finally lay to rest his always misleading characterisation of himself as a “global peacemaker”. It’s high time Keir Starmer and other European leaders publicly recognise him for what he is – a global warmaker, a universal menace.

    Each time he blunders noisily into conflict zones, such as Russia-Ukraine or Israel-Palestine, setting deadlines, issuing ultimatums, picking favourites and monetising misery, the quest for just and lasting peace is set back.

    Little wonder peace is elusive. And bizarrely, even while posing as a disinterested peacemaker and non-interventionist, Trump simultaneously wages war on the world. The US conducted record numbers of air strikes in the Middle East and Africa last year, surveys show.

    Since returning to office a year ago, peace-loving Trump has bombed Yemen, carelessly killing numerous civilians after loosening rules of engagement; bombed Nigeria, to counter-productive effect; bombed Somalia, Iraq and Syria; and bombed Iran, where he mendaciously exaggerated the success of US strikes on nuclear facilities. He even refuses to rule out bombing Greenland, a sovereign territory of Nato ally Denmark.

    What’s going on inside Trump’s head? A benign interpretation is that in matters of war and peace, he has no idea what he is doing – no strategy, no clue – and makes up policy as he goes, depending on how he feels.

    The sinister interpretation says he knows exactly what he’s at, that more and worse is to come. Like previous second-term presidents who ran out of road domestically, Trump finds the world stage offers greater possibilities for the exercise of power and ego. He is building a legacy in blood.

    Trump’s irresponsible, dangerously erratic behaviour is getting measurably worse. His Venezuela “success” may encourage him to attempt more and bigger, unhinged outrages. Like Mark Antony minus the toga and brains, he struts and preens, cries havoc! and lets slip the dogs of war.

    Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator.



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  • Snippets: “The E’s have it” . . . and more

    Snippets: “The E’s have it” . . . and more

    The E’s have it:

    Epstein (transparency)

    Enbridge/oil pipeline builder (Line 5/also Line 3)

    Elbit Systems/Israeli defense firm (Thunberg London arrest)

    Ethnic Cleansing/Humanitarian Disaster (Sudan/Gaza)

    E-ICE (ICE crimes are documented everywhere; their purpose and violence are inexcusable)

    Senator Wyden on the new trillion dollar defense bill

    Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who voted no on the defense spending bill, said, “I cannot support a bill that increases military spending by tens of billions of dollars and fails to include guardrails against Donald Trump and Hegseth’s authoritarian abuses.”

    From Hannah Arendt

    “The ‘apocalyptic’ chess game between the superpowers that is, between those that move on the highest plane of our civilization, is being played according to the rule ‘if either “wins” it is the end of both’; it is a game that bears no resemblance to whatever war games preceded it. Its ‘rational’ goal is deterrence, not victory, and the arms race, no longer a preparation for war, can now be justified only on the grounds that more and more deterrence is the best guarantee of peace. To the question how shall we ever be able to extricate ourselves from the obvious insanity of this position, there is no answer.”
    Hannah Arendt, On Violence

    There are now organizations like ICAN that before Trump and his cartel took over have taken huge steps internationally to ban nuclear weapons. But the Trumpites see only the military as a solution, when in reality it is the greatest threat to world peace. ICAN built the following UN treaty:

    The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW)

    The TPNW was adopted at the United Nations by a majority of nations in July 2017 and entered into force on January 22, 2021. It is the first globally applicable treaty to categorically prohibit nuclear weapons and provides a framework for their verifiable and irreversible elimination. 

    Trump has removed the US from many international arms treaties just as he has removed US participation in prevention of climate change at the recent COP international UN conference about climate change and continued to promote the greatest polluter in the world, CO2, caused by fossil fuel that also drives the military with over 1000 military bases worldwide.


    • What new authoriarian or fascist tripe will be thrown at us by Trump and his administration? As the poet William Blake once said: “Enough! Or too much.” My AI interprets that as: “the power of imagination and challenging conventional morality.” Robert Reich in his most recent Coffee Klatch on Saturday, 12/27/2025 explores the idea that Trump’s excesses and authoritarian dictates have exposed the conventional morality we have been living under, accepting the status quo around racism, women’s oppression and rights, healthcare, housing, and other oppressive systems for so many Americans.

    • As the population if the United States has become more diverse and has many more shades of color, the white supremacists have lost their hold while at the same time they are losing their unilateral hemogeny in the world (collapse of empire) and are trying desperately to hold on.

    • Trump and his cartel think the solution is a superior military that has put us on the edge of more war, especially in Latin America and particularly Venezuela which has two strikes against it. One, it is a socialist country and therefore the opposite of capitalism’s greed in its idiology. Second, and not without significance even though the Trump administration denies it, Venezuela has the greatest reserve of oil in the world. Much of that oil is offshore, but still belongs to Venezuela. 

    • Why is the oil so important? It sustains the military industrial complex and is essential for that hyper-military system that has those 1000 or so military bases worldwide. Those jets and other oil uses from US military bases alone are the greatest CO2 (fossil fuel) sources in the world. You say so what? But if you understand the climate crisis you know that they are destroying the planet with their use of fossil fuel. Yet Trump encourages fracking and major use of fossil fuels and supports the corporations that use them. That, of course, is in direct conflict with those of us who want to save the planet. 

    • The gas and oil companies who economically control our government along with domination from other corporations, most especially including the weapons’ industry, which again is tied into the hyper-military. 

    • So how are all those corporations, internationally those multinational corporations and the financial groups that support them going to make money? They desperately cling to their old and destructive ways. But that creates jobs, they say. But statistics have proved that turning to a green basis for the economy can create just as many if not more jobs. That scares them. Instead of changing their ways because they might lose their power and their money, they continue on the road to destruction instead if using their time and money for new innovations that could help save the planet.

    • US industry has lost its innovative edge. Daily I see that this or that country worldwide has created a new tool to deal with the climate crisis, and China is ahead of the US in the war against climate change. Instead the US is stagnated, caught in a MEGA web that serves no one except the rich while convincing too many Americans who are Trump supporters that there is no genocide in Palestine. Recent examples I have seen online include the Netherlands inventing a tubing they put in the ocean that collects plastic that they then process the plastic to prevent pollution. Other nations have built large areas of solar panels on flat land dedicated to solar power. In Morocco they have developed an inexpensive small solar panel that can be placed on their balconies. There are many more examples but you will not find them described in the mainstream corporate media. 

     “In the end there is no democracy without informed citizens, no justice without a language critical of injustice, and no change without a broad-based movement of collective resistance.”

    —Henry Giroux



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  • Sue Ann Martinson, New Year Musings: “Enough! or Too Much”

    Sue Ann Martinson, New Year Musings: “Enough! or Too Much”

    Sometimes when I am writing a phrase from my literary background pops into my mind; I am not always sure why. This time it was William Blake’s “Enough! or Too much” from his “Proverbs of Hell” in his book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.

    New Year Musings: “Enough! or Too Much”
    By Sue Ann Martinson

    I had been listening to comments from Robert Reich on the Coffee Klatch program on Saturdays that he does with cohost Heather Lofthouse. Reich is talking about the excesses in Trump’s authoritarian edicts and his behavior, the hate rants and racism, his narcissistic behavior as he wants his name on everything from the Kennedy Center to peace plans that never seem to work out, to his condemnation of anyone who disagrees with him or challenges him and what he says. He has, in effect, lost touch with reality and has taken Congress and the Supreme Court with him. Reich’s point is exactly what this proverb, the last of the Proverbs of Hell, represents: You Never Know What is Enough Unless You Know What is More than Enough.” Trump’s rantings and ravings are certainly more than Enough (or Too much), as are his inhumane and cruel actions.

    Reich sees this beginning of a sea change as positive, a move toward sanity by the American people as they recognize Trump’s excesses in word and deed.

    Tony Trigilio, a professor at Columbia College Chicago, in an article entitled ”Poetic Influence: William Blake: You Never Know What is Enough Unless You Know What is More than Enough,” explains what this final proverb means for writers.***

    But like all Blake’s proverbs the application can be broader than the literary sphere: It applies also to Trump’s excesses revealed in their naked truth, which is what Reich understands and sees as a catalyst as cracks begin to show between the GOP Congress and Trump. More and more people also are signing on to oppose him, as reflected in the polls that rate him and his presidency at very low levels as increasing millions also join in the No King demonstrations.

    In Minnesota, especially Minneapolis, Trump’s slurs about the Somali people and attacks on Representative Ilhan Omar have activated an already Woke community to take continued action — in what Roger Waters calls “steadfast perseverance” — by many activists, including religious groups as well as those who take to the streets to confront ICE regularly. Governor Walz has spoken out, as has the mayor of Minneapols Jacob Frye. Attorney General Keith Ellison has joined with Attorney Generals from other states as well in lawsuits. The Minneapolis City Council has declared Minneapolis a Sanctuary City.

    Nor have we forgotten the genocide Gaza/Palestine as those actions and protests and educational programs continue as well.

    Last, but certainly not least, 15,000 people marched down Lake Street in the center of the city on the cold and windy day of December 20, 2025 in protest of ICE.

    ADDENDUM

    Other Work by William Blake

    Wm. Blake is known for his satirical poetry and the art he created that often accompanied it. An “activist,” he was once tried for sedition for an “anti-monarchy” statement but was acquitted. His activism is really through his writings. Blake’s most accessible and popular work is Songs of Innocence and Experience. Simply written, and illustrated by Blake, the poems reflect the warts on the face of English society and culture.


    ***Writers will want to read the following analysis by Tony Trigilio of the proverb under discussion, “Enough! or Too much,” for its insight into the writing process.

    Like most writers, my creative process is rarely linear. It requires recursive movement between free-form generative writing and disciplined self-editing. This dance between drafting and revision can be a delicate one. If I linger too long in the generative stage of the process, I can find myself tangled in a free-associative clump of language with no shape or coherence. At the same time, if I linger too long in revision, I can easily get stuck, Prufrock-like, in a self-critical loop of “decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.”

    This movement back and forth between drafting and revision would be far more difficult if not for one of William Blake’s “Proverbs of Hell,” from his book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell:

    “You never know what is enough,” Blake writes, “unless you know what is more than enough.”



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  • DN! “Destroying Knowledge”: Trump Dismantles Vital Climate Research Center, by Michael Mann

    DN! “Destroying Knowledge”: Trump Dismantles Vital Climate Research Center, by Michael Mann

    Trump Dismantles Vital Climate Research Center

    Climate scientists and meteorologists are sounding the alarm after White House budget director Russell Vought announced the Trump administration will break up the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, known as NCAR.

    “He is executing the playbook of Project 2025,” says Michael Mann, scientist and co-author of Science Under Siege. Without NCAR, “we will not have the sorts of observational data and climate models that we need to inform climate policy.”

    Transcript
    This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

    AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.

    In Colorado, hundreds of protesters gathered in Boulder Saturday to condemn the Trump administration’s plan to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research – NCAR, a federally funded climate and weather research institute based in Boulder. Last week, White House budget director Russell Vought called NCAR “one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country,” unquote.

    Democratic lawmakers have suggested Trump targeted the climate facility in retaliation for Colorado’s refusal to release Tina Peters, a former county clerk convicted of tampering with voting machines during the 2020 presidential election. She was sentenced to nine years. Trump recently pardoned her, but he doesn’t have the legal authority to overturn a state court conviction.

    We’re joined now by climate scientist Michael Mann, professor at the University of Pennsylvania. His new book with Dr. Peter Hotez is titled Science Under Siege. He has a new piece out today in The Guardian on Trump’s shuttering of the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

    Can you talk about the significance, Michael, Professor Mann, of the closing? Are they closing this facility? What it means, I mean, even right now, as Colorado is under a wildfire alert because there has been so little rain and the winds are so intense?

    MICHAEL MANN: Yeah. It’s good to be with you, Amy.

    Unfortunately, this does sort of underscore just how absurd this latest action by the Trump administration is. We’re literally seeing the devastating consequences of climate change play out in this state. You’re not supposed to get wildfires in the middle of the winter in Colorado, but that’s the world we live in now because of the warming of the planet and the more extreme weather that we’re seeing as a result.

    And, you know, I think there are a lot of things that Donald Trump could have tried to do to hurt the state of Colorado. I think the reason that he chose NCAR is that it is the crown jewel of climate science. For more than a half-century, it has been a leader when it comes to American advancement in the science of climate modeling. And he is executing the playbook of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation, of course, playing a major part in this dismantling of climate infrastructure, the infrastructure for doing climate science, the infrastructure for doing something about the climate crisis. So, it isn’t a coincidence that he’s going after this, you know, iconic climate institution.

    AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about, overall, the Trump administration now when it comes to climate change. And what does it mean to take NCAR basically offline? And what happens to this facility in Boulder right now?

    MICHAEL MANN: Yeah, it’s unclear at this point. And this will play out in the courts, almost certainly, so we don’t know the full consequences of this yet. But the models that NCAR creates are used around the world. They’re among the leading models of Earth’s climate system. I have benefited tremendously in my own research from the work that NCAR does when it comes to climate modeling, when it comes to observational climate data sets that allow us to document the changes that are taking place. So this will hurt climate science, certainly, writ large.

    But it will also ensure that the United States fall to the back of the line, essentially. We used to lead in all areas of science, and certainly in climate science. And now what we’re — you know, these sorts of actions are going to mean that the rest of the world moves ahead of us. Scientists are going to leave the United States for opportunities in other countries. And we are going to, essentially, fall behind in terms of our scientific leadership and our scientific stature in the world.

    But the actual practical consequences are that we will not have the sorts of observational data and climate models that we need to inform climate policy, to, you know, help us understand what sorts of adaptive measures will need to be changed to protect people from the devastating consequences of climate change as it continues on.

    AMY GOODMAN: The Trump administration recently denied Colorado Governor Jared Polis’s disaster declaration request for major wildfires and flooding across Colorado. The Boulder area experienced hurricane-force winds of nearly 100 miles per hour over the weekend and increased fire danger, prompting NCAR to close for safety reasons. The significance of this?

    MICHAEL MANN: Yeah, I mean, it’s ironic, isn’t it? Not only are they trying, is Trump and, you know, the Koch brothers and the other sort of plutocrats behind these actions — not only are they trying to dismantle climate science, they’re trying to dismantle our ability to protect people from the devastating consequences of climate change. So, it’s cruel. It is — you know, it’s going to cost lives. I mean, these actions are — you know, it may be a little bit more subtle than the lives cost because of their anti-science actions when it comes to vaccines and COVID-19 and protecting — you know, protecting public health in that arena, but millions of people ultimately will die from the consequences of extreme weather events, coastal inundation, all of these impacts that are made worse by the, you know, warming of the planet, that’s due to the burning of fossil fuels, the burning of fossil fuels by the very companies and plutocrats and petrostates that are behind the policies of this administration.

    AMY GOODMAN: [You] said, “Not since the ransacking of the Library of Alexandria have we witnessed such a wanton, intentional assault on scientific knowledge.” We have 30 seconds, Professor Mann.

    MICHAEL MANN: Yeah, it’s a line from my commentary. And, you know, there’s some question as to the veracity of that story, but I think it captures sort of the insanity of what we’re doing. We’re literally destroying knowledge. And we have to look back to ancient times to see eras similar, you know, when barbarians tried to destroy knowledge. That’s what this administration is doing. They’re trying to destroy knowledge.

    AMY GOODMAN: Michael Mann, professor at the University of Pennsylvania, co-author of the book Science Under Siege with Dr. Peter Hotez. We will link to your new piece, out today in The Guardian.

    The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.


    Just Transition”: Polluting Countries Must Take Responsibility for Extreme Climate Change


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