Trump’s lies about Springfield’s immigrants eating dogs and cats…
Today in Politics / Explainer The Upcoming Election Campaign, the Epstein Files, and more…
Heather Cox Richardson is an American historian who works as a professor of history at Boston College, where she teaches courses on the American Civil War, the Reconstruction Era, the American West, and the Plains Indians. She previously taught history at MIT and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Richardson has authored seven books on history and politics. In 2019, she started publishing Letters from an American, a nightly newsletter that chronicles current events in the larger context of American history. Richardson focuses on the health of American democracy. As of July 2025, the newsletter had over 2.6 million subscribers, making it one of the most popular Substack publications.
As a historian, Richardson advocates studying history to learn how to distill complex situations into something easier to understand. She does this through her newsletters, books, and podcasts. (Wikipedia)
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.
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
“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
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 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 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.
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.
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.
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
“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
This analysis by Professor Davis is full of good information. However, it does not tell the full story and is therefore misleading regarding U.S. responsibility for CO2 emissions. The U.S. military has approximately 1000 bases worldwide. These bases are large emitters of CO2 emissions from vehicles, tanks, etc., but the worst emitters are the jet planes. This information is documented by a study done by Neta C. Crawford in research at Brown University* and in her book The Pentagon, Climate Change, and War: Charting the Rise and Fall of U.S Military Emissions, MIT Press, 2022, pp.147-148 and 154-156.
February 28, 2026
According to PBS news Israel and the U.S. have attacked Iran, using U.S. 200 fighter jets that made 500 hits.
Democracy Now! reports that Israeli-U.S. airstrikes across Iran have killed to date (3/2/2026) 550 people including bombing a girl’s school. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah and family members and other officials have been killed as well.
The strike was not approved by the U.S. Congress or the U.N. Security Council. Widening to a regional war, bombing throughout the Middle East has also taken place. Trump has threatened that the bombings may go on for weeks.
Trump’s “strong man” authoritarian approach to global politics includes his build-up of the military as a solution to all problems if he cannot “make a deal.” In his mental processes he does not understand any need for accountability. As Col. Smedley Butler once said, War is Hell.
Detached from reality and tucked away in his golden dream, Trump has no concept of morality. He does not care that people, citizens of Iran and other Middle Eastern countries were killed and injured in the strike any more than he cares about the many thousands of death in Palestine/Gaza or the callousness of ICE or the Border Patrol in the U.S. Nor does he care in the U.S about the many people due to lose Medicare, Medicaid and other benefits or the people who have lost their jobs or have to work two jobs make ends meet with the incremental increase in the cost of everything, including food and rent, due to inflation and his tariffs; ultimately it is the taxpayer who has to pay.
*Neta Crawford’s research, primarily conducted for the Costs of War Project at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, has established that the U.S. Department of Defense is the world’s largest institutional user of petroleum and, consequently, one of the largest producers of greenhouse gases. (AI Overview, Google)
Why is understanding the role of the U.S. military in the climate crisis important?
Davis’s final chart shows more emissions from the U.S. than any other country. If he includes jet fuel under any of the categories of emissions for the U.S. he does not mention it specifically in his global analysis.
The gas and oil industry as well as those who see China as a U.S. arch enemy promote a narrative that does not tell the full story. Since Crawford’s book was published China has made strides in using solar power and other methods to cut CO2 emissions. Smaller countries are also creating innovative ways to create sustainable energy and put the U.S. to shame in their creativity. Under the Trump regime fracking and the use of oil-based energy has increased to feed the oil pipeline and the greed of the gas and oil industry and also the weapons industry and million/billion-aires in the U.S. and by multinationals; several are U.S. based.
The Trump regime’s latest disaster (one of many) in the Reign of Terror is to repeal EPA standards that were set up by President Biden around energy. The repeal now allows the gas and oil industry, which is coupled with the U.S. military, free rein. What is usually not discussed is CO2 and the climate crisis and the dependence of the U.S. military on gas and oil.
Making the connections between the U.S. military and the global domination and hegemony Trump craves is an essential key in driving down carbon emissions and saving the planet. The future of the planet depends on making those connections and reining in the hyper-military “strong man” authoritarian approach of Donald Trump and seeking non-violent solutions to global peace.
Earth’s atmosphere contains carbon dioxide, which is good for life on Earth – in moderation. Plants use CO2 as the source of the carbon they build into leaves and wood via photosynthesis. In combination with water vapor, CO2 insulates the Earth, keeping it from turning into a frozen world. Life as we know it on Earth would not exist without CO2 in the atmosphere.
Since the industrial revolution began, however, humans have been adding more and more carbon dioxide to the Earth’s atmosphere, and it has become a problem.
The atmospheric concentration of CO2 has risen by more than 50% since industries began burning coal and other fossil fuels in the late 1700s, reaching concentrations that haven’t been found in the Earth’s atmosphere in at least a million years. And the concentration continues to rise.
Excess CO2 drives global warming
Who cares? Everyone should.
More CO2 in the air means temperatures at the Earth’s surface rise. As temperature rises, the water cycle accelerates, leading to more floods and droughts. Glaciers melt, and warmer ocean water expands, raising sea levels.
We are living with an increasing frequency or intensity of wildfires, heat waves, flooding and hurricanes, all influenced by increasing CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere.
The ocean also absorbs some of that CO2, making the water increasingly acidic, which can harm species crucial to the marine food chain.
Where America’s CO emissions come from – what you need to know, in charts
Where is this additional CO2 coming from?
The biggest source of additional CO2 is the combustion of fossil fuels – oil, natural gas and coal – to power vehicles, electricity generation and industries. Each of these fuels consists of hydrocarbons built by plants that grew on the Earth over the past few hundred million years.
These plants took CO2 out of the planet’s atmosphere, died, and their biomass was buried in water and sediments.
Today, humans are reversing hundreds of millions of years of carbon accumulation by digging these fuels out of the Earth and burning them to provide energy.
The U.S. emitted 5,053 million metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere in 2022, the last year for which a complete emissions inventory is available. We also emit other greenhouse gases, including methane, from natural gas production and animal agriculture, and nitrous oxide, created when microbes digest nitrogen fertilizer. But carbon dioxide is about 80% of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.
Of those 5,053 million metric tons of CO2 emitted by the U.S. in 2022, 93% came from the combustion of fossil fuels.
Where America’s CO emissions come from – what you need to know, in charts
More specifically: about 35% of the CO2 emissions were from transportation, 30% from the generation of electric power, and 16%, 7% and 5% from on-site consumption of fossil fuels by industrial, residential and commercial buildings, respectively. Electric power generation served industrial, residential and commercial buildings roughly equally.
What fossil fuels are being burned?
Transportation is dominated by petroleum products, or oil – think gasoline and diesel fuel.
Nationwide, power plants consume roughly equal fractions of coal and natural gas. Natural gas use has been increasing and coal decreasing in this sector, with this trend driven by the rapid expansion of the shale gas industry in the U.S.
How poisonous mercury can get from coal-fired power plants into the fish you eat – Trump’s EPA plans to weaken emissions rules meant to lower the risk
U.S. forests are removing CO2 from the atmosphere, but not rapidly enough to offset human emissions. U.S. forests removed and stored about 920 million metric tons of CO2 in 2022.
How US CO2 emissions have changed
Emissions from the U.S. peaked around 2005 at 6,217 million metric tons of CO2. Since then, emissions have been decreasing slowly, largely driven by the replacement of coal by natural gas in electricity production.
Some additional notable trends will impact the future:
First, the U.S. economy has become more energy efficient over time, increasing productivity while decreasing emissions.
Where America’s CO emissions come from – what you need to know, in charts.
Second, solar and wind energy generation, while still a modest fraction of total energy production, has grown steadily in recent years and emits essentially no CO2 into the atmosphere. If the nation increasingly relies on renewable energy sources and reduces burning of fossil fuels, it will dramatically reduce its CO2 emissions.
Solar and wind energy became cheaper as a new energy source than natural gas and coal, but the Trump administration is cutting federal support for renewable energy and is doubling down on subsidies for fossil fuels. The growth of data centers is also expected to increase demand for electricity. How the U.S. meets that demand will impact national CO2 emissions in future years.
How US emissions compare globally
The U.S. ranked second in CO2 emissions worldwide in 2022, behind China, which emitted about 12,000 million metric tons of CO2. China’s annual CO2 emissions surpassed U.S. emissions in 2005 or 2006. NOTE:
China’s influence grows at COP29 climate talks as US leadership fades
Added up over time, however, the U.S. has emitted more CO2 into the atmosphere than any other nation, and we still emit more CO2 per person than most other industrialized nations. Chinese and European emissions are both roughly half of U.S. emissions on a per capita basis.
Where America’s CO emissions come from – what you need to know, in charts
Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere mix evenly around the globe, so emissions from industrialized nations affect the climate in developing countries that have benefited very little from the energy created by burning fossil fuels.
The takeaway
There have been some promising downward trends in U.S. CO2 emissions and upward trends in renewable energy sources, but political winds and increasing energy demands threaten progress in reducing emissions.
Reducing emissions in all sectors is needed to slow and eventually stop the rise of atmospheric CO2 concentrations. The world has the technological means to make large reductions in emissions. CO2 emitted into the atmosphere today lingers in the atmosphere for hundreds to thousands of years. The decisions we make today will influence the Earth’s climate for a very long time.
This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Kenneth J. Davis, Penn State
Kenneth J. Davis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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.
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
“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 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.
PRESIDENTDONALDTRUMP: 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]
PRESIDENTDONALDTRUMP: Very unfortunate ruling.
PEOPLE: [cheers and applause]
PRESIDENTDONALDTRUMP: 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]
AMYGOODMAN: 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.
JOSEPHSTIGLITZ: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.
AMYGOODMAN: 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?
JOSEPHSTIGLITZ: 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.
AMYGOODMAN: I want to go back to President Trump speaking last night.
PRESIDENTDONALDTRUMP: 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.
AMYGOODMAN: “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?
JOSEPHSTIGLITZ: 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.
AMYGOODMAN: 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?
JOSEPHSTIGLITZ: 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.
AMYGOODMAN: 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.
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.
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
“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
Pictured: ICE agent Jonathan Ross, 43, of Chaska MN, who shot Renee Good to death on January 7, 2026
Federal Goons in Minneapolis
By Susu Jeffrey / Original to Wings of Change / February 6, 2026
The two masked federal officials who shot intensive care nurse Alex Pretti are Texans, Jesus Ochoa and Raymundo Gutierrez. Ochoa, 43, joined Border Patrol in 2018; Gutierrez, 35, has been with Customs and Border Protection since 2018. The January 24 killing of Pretti has been ruled a homicide, that is, an unlawful killing of a person.
Although Pretti’s autopsy has not been released he was shot perhaps 10 times according to a The New YorkTimes frame by frame review of video footage. Ochoa and Gutierrez were whisked out of Minneapolis soon after killing Pretti as part of the federal brotherhood protective practice.
Jonathan Ross, 43, who shot Renee Good three times plus a bullet graze while she was sitting in her car on January 7 has a long military career. He served with the Indiana National Guard in Iraq in 2004-5 as a machine gunner on a combat patrol truck.
In 2007 Ross joined the U.S. Border Patrol and worked out of El Paso, Texas. He moved to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in 2015, working in a deportation unit. Ross is a firearms instructor, on a SWAT team and specializes in tracking down “higher value targets.” Ross lives in “a large house on a quiet street” in Chaska, a southwest suburb of Minneapolis. He is described by his father as a “conservative Christian.”
ICE is the wealthiest law enforcement agency in the country. Ross’ Minneapolis attorney, Chris Madel. a law enforcement defender, ended his gubernatorial run after the Pretti murder saying “national Republicans have made it nearly impossible for a Republican to win a statewide election in Minnesota.” However Madel said he still supported President Trump’s cliché about the immigration hunt for “the worst of the worst.”
The Twin Cities are still overrun with armed, masked enforcers (at least 2000) who are terrorizing citizens into staying at home, and missing school and work. Business is suffering. Nevertheless, thousands and thousands of peaceful neighbors turn out for frequent demonstrations and attended the February 3 political caucuses. Besides the regular protests, neighborhoods are organized to act if ICE comes into their territory, trained legal observers are tracking ICE agents, and people are donating food and other items to distribution centers. People are also delivering food to those who are housebound by choice. Others are driving to and picking up children to and from school. Defying and standing up to ICE in Minnesota is a community effort.
Susu Jeffreyis a poet and writer living in Minneapolis, Minnesota
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
Join us on Wings of Change. It’s only the beginning as 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 people of color.
“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
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.
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
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.
“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
These are perilous times, and we have much work to do. It is wonderful to see how much work is being done by activists locally, around the country, and around the world. But there is more to do.
Let Freedom Ring! The Liberty Bell may be cracked but “that’s how the light gets in” says Leonard Cohen. Meanwhile “ring the bells that still can ring” with continued action everywhere in every possible nonviolent way as we continue to plant the seeds of justice and peace. You’ve heard the saying “every time a bell rings an angel gets its wings.” Now every time you take an action for justice and peace from a phone call or email to civil resistance you use your Wings of Change.
On this my new website and blog I will still be posting some articles just as I did on Rise Up Times, with the addition of a blog. I am so glad to have a website again.
Subscribe today! Access is always free. Wings of Change is entirely reader supported. Your support is important and essential in these perilous times. Please donate here to WingsofChange.me. Or mail a check to Sue Ann Martinson, 3900 11th Ave. So., Unit Box 209, Minneapolis MN 55407
The original Rise Up Times website has been archived but these are still rise up times, and it is even more important that we continue to rise up! Rise Up Times is still on social media: Twitter (X), Facebook, Pinterest, Tumbler, Linked In, and under my name, Sue Ann Martinson, on my personal Facebook page. And also now on Instagram and Tik Tok.
With peace and justice for all,
Sue Ann
Seeds of Resistance art by artist/activist Ricardo Levins Morales: rlmartstudio.com. Posters, cards, and more.
Need a T-shirt or a roll of stickers or a bumper sticker? Or maybe a button for your cause.Don’t forget Northern Sun (northernsun.com) for custom orders and peace and justice items.
