Minneapolis ICE Shooting: Glenn Shares His Thoughts
This is a clip from our show SYSTEM UPDATE, now airing every weeknight at 7pm ET on Rumble. You can watch the full episode for FREE here: https://rumble.com/v743ucq-system-upd…
Wings of Change is entirely reader supported.
Wings invites you to subscribe. Join us on Wings of Change
Does what I saw make Agent Jonathan Ross, like Derek Chauvin, guilty of murder?
Renee Good is the Next George Floyd
By Susu Jeffrey / Original to Wings of Change / January 10, 2026
And how many more will there be? Is this about a woman murdered by a federalized cop? Is this about national powers versus states’ rights—a judicial Civil War?
There are several videos of the crucial seconds taken from slightly different angles where the view is significantly different. The video that I saw repeatedly on WCCO 4 News, the video with the widest view of the back and drivers’ side of the car showed ICE Agent Jonathan Ross’ right hand pulling out his pistol before Renee Good’s car moved.
Agent Ross was in the background facing toward the front of the car with another agent standing foreground at the drivers’ side window. That placement was the focus of the view. I did not notice Ross’ hand movement at first. At my second viewing I noticed Agent Ross’ right hand unholster his gun. OMG! On my third viewing, yes, I absolutely saw the gun pulled out and then heard shots.
The car slowly curves away from the shooter who may have been brushed lightly by the outside rounded left headlight. He was not hit or knocked down or unbalanced. The car accelerates down the street and bashes into a parked car. Agent Ross runs after the car, not limping. You have to pay to see that video now. He shot Renee Good point blank in the face.
Congress shall
make no law abridging the
freedom of speech or the right of the people peaceably to assemble.
Peaceably may include yelling, cursing, chanting and waving flags but not throwing snowballs or touching. Spitting on someone equals assault. Police training includes crowd control but apparently not enough police control. The problem with hurling verbal insults at poorly trained ICE agents sometimes results in violent responses from them.
Does what I saw make Agent Jonathan Ross, like Derek Chauvin, guilty of murder? Yes, from what I saw with my own eyes, burned into my visual memory. Could the ICE agent have stepped away from the car? Probably since he had time to aim and fire repeatedly. Did Agent Ross think before he shot Renee Good or was he out of control? Since he drew his weapon and fired quickly before the car rolled away, I saw someone who acted without thinking. Does the ubiquitous arming of police promote everyday violence? Duh!
So now Minneapolis will live through another paroxysm of grief, hate, despair, loathing and probably miss any sweet milk of forgiveness via justice since President Trump will undoubtedly pardon murderer Ross. There will be a judicial war between the state and the nation to further shake our pillars of democracy in this 250th birthday year of our experiment in self-governing. We’re on a teeter totter.
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
Wings of Change is entirely reader supported.
Wings invites you to subscribe. Join us on Wings of Change
What it is: A time of intense violence and fear, often by a ruling group against its own people.
A “Reign of Terror” is a period of extreme violence and political repression where those in power use fear, mass arrests, and executions to eliminate perceived enemies and enforce control [as] famously seen during the French Revolution when thousands were guillotined for opposing the revolutionary government. It’s characterized by arbitrary trials, paranoia, and the suppression of rights to maintain power and revolutionary ideals.
(Definition GoogleAI)
Unlike the French Revolution when the ruling elite (aristocracy) were guillotined by the revolutionaries, in the US those being oppressed are in opposition to an authoritarian neo-fascist takeover and support immigrant rights and condemn the presence of ICE agents making arrests and putting people in unsafe and often inadequate of even the most basic needs such as clean water. Often they are beaten and abused as well. Many are then deported to their country of origin or sometimes to a country they are not familiar with at all. American citizens are sometimes arrested as well.
The policies that support aggression internationally and backed by hyper-militarism with a goal of world domination characterized by neo-colonialism pursued by the Trump regime are opposed.
Building a Reign of Terror at Home and Abroad
In recent years the hot wars and bombings are conducted by proxies as in Ukraine and some African countries, and in Palestine/Gaza while financially supported by the US. The war against Venezuela is now a hot war with the recent bombing and the kidnapping of President Maduro and his wife. This escalation is of concern worldwide as it signals the intent of Trump and his administration to move into a hot-war mode.
Trump’s reign of terror against people within the United States is not always a literal bloody one. Trump’s assault on the United States continues in several forms.
Bruce Springsteen sums up well the travesties of the Trump administration as millions step forward to save Democracy. MEGA? I think not.
Instead for the Trump regime it means pursuing worldwide hegemony and empire in a new neo-colonialism that robs the resources of other countries and puts money into the coffers of multinational corporations with no conscience and where the only Green revolution acceptable is the US dollar. At the same time the Trump administration is attacking America as Springsteen’s video enumerates its many crimes against humanity and the American people.
Climate Crisis
While other countries worldwide are creating new innovations to reduce the results of human-created climate change by the greedy, the US moves backward into promoting fossil fuel and remains the largest polluter of fossil fuel (CO2) worldwide with its over 1000 military bases. The claim is that the US is second to China in CO2 pollution, but that is only the territorial United States and does not include the worldwide bases.
In a vicious circle the polluting of military bases relates to the mistaken hyper-military buildup of the US that leads to the US government’s domination by oil and gas industry and also the weapons industry. The bombing of Venezuela and the attempt to take it over is all about oil of course. To remind you, Venezula has the largest oil resources in the WORLD. US-based multinational corporations like Chevron, Citco, and more have been lusting after it for years.
In the meantime, in the US energy costs increase and Trump tries to destroy any other energy source, no matter how Green, such as the turbine windmills on the East Coast he has had shut down as part of the reign of terror inside our country, as fossil fuel and CO2 prevail, threatening our planet.
Google AI: DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) in education is facing significant challenges, with numerous state laws banning DEI offices, trainings, and curriculum, alongside federal actions from the U.S. Education Department and Justice Department targeting related programs, leading to college restructuring, funding cuts, and legal battles over free speech and equity initiatives. This wave of anti-DEI efforts aims to curtail efforts supporting marginalized students, sparking debates about educational access, inclusion, and the future of campus diversity initiatives.
Much of the resistance began on college campuses such as Columbia University with students protesting genocide in Palestine/Gaza. In a weaponization of antisemitism these students were punished for their opposition to genocide and their college administrations were told their federal funding would be cut under the auspices of the Trump administration if they did not shut the student protests down. Academic freedom and freedom of speech were debated and questions raised, but most college administrations caved to the Trumpites because losing the federal funding for research and other programs seemed too much. Essentially they were blackmailed. (I thought that was against the law.)
Only Harvard, with a huge endowment, held out. With the court cases going back and forth between Harvard and the Trump administration, on January 5, 2026 a ruling considered favorable to Harvard was issued regarding research expenses. The ruling may prove important for other colleges as well.
Healthcare and Social Security
The reign of terror also includes the planned cutting of Medicare and Medicaid and shutting down of Obama Care. Ridiculously high rates proposed for healthcare hover around us. Serious cuts to social security are also being proposed.
Immigrant Rights and the Creation of ICE
Where is all this money from the cuts going? In great measure to fund ICE and into the pockets of corporations and billionaires, including the president’s family. Meanwhile the news is saying 500,000 immigrants have been detained or deported although the worst crime of many was getting a parking ticket, or maybe it was a headlight out on a car. Modeled after the Nazi Gestapo, ICE so far has operated with impunity, arresting people off the street or even invading schools and other public areas. These arrests often involve unnecessary violence on the part of the ICE agents.
It is the kind of thing happening to immigrants nationwide, these so-called criminals. Some hold green cards, others are US citizens. They clean our office buildings and hotels, work in construction, all kinds of jobs. Some own shops, are small business owners, and in one way or another contribute to the economy.
Are they taking jobs away from US citizens? Probably not, because all those disgruntled workers, many men who support Trump, don’t do those jobs anyway, or if they do their whiteness gives them priviledge. I don’t like to say it, but even with the gains in feminism, women are used to getting short-shrift with lower wages and being discriminared against in jobs although clearly there has been progress with women who are governors, legislators, managers, heads of departments, etc.
Making America Great Again translates into one simple goal: white male supremacy. Not all men are falling for that, of course, but some still just don’t get it. Why suddenly are they no longer supreme no matter what? Between feminism and DEI they feel attacked.
Women’s Rights
Men traditionally have been taught that they are superior to women in brain power and at performing most jobs. Although that is not true as women have proved their equality in many areas again and again although men have ruled the roost. The shadow of this belief still hangs over us. I am old enough that I remember it, suffered from it.
For example, I was talking to a young helper I had and mentioned to her that women could not get charge cards at stores; they had to be in their husband’s or father’s name. She was flabbergasted.
Similarly, women could not dine in certain restaurants such as the Oak Room in Dayton’s Department Store. Until women broke that taboo, too.
Even as I was effected by discrimination, I also benefited from white supremacy. I could always find a job, even if only a job that was part of shuffling women into low-paying clerical-type work.
These may seem like small things in what was a major women’s revolution, but they illustrate what is part of a larger picture.
Once a man about ten years younger complained to me that his girlfriend was going to a meeting at which no men were allowed He was very hurt by that, having no idea of the centuries of that kind of treatment of women as they were also barred from professions such as doctors and lawyers, even managers, and more.
Trump has created a list of 66 organizations he is withdrawing from; 31 are part of the UN, including UN Women. Trump’s disdain for women is well known. If he is unhappy with men he does criticize them and cut them out of his favored advisors, but he attacks women verbally using disparaging and degrading language. He goes after reporters who ask him hard questions about the Epstein files, but other woman as well. For a number of years he has verbally abused Congressional Representative Ilhan Omar. Born in Somalia, she is of course a US citizen. He derides her for her political positions and her origins and religion in racist rants against her.
International Politics
The United States is now the main threat to the sovereignty of Nations. —David Miller
A short satirical poem about international politics, by Susu Jeffrey.
Let’s Be Consistent (a poem)
If Israel gets Palestine
then Russia gets Ukraine
and China gets Tiawan
and the U.S. gets Greenland.
Susu’s poem is not necessarily logical. Not much is now logical internationally, and Trump is anything but consistent. His vision is to go back to the unilateral domination of the world by the US which has been lost. These greedy men, with Trump at the top, want it all. They have a neo-colonial vision. MEGA. Much of the rest of the world is not in agreement. The battle for hegemony goes on, as does the struggle of nations to be sovereign. Trump and Company will not accept that US empire just is not predominant anymore. They think the way to retain their power and control is through a hyper-military, which uses massive amounts of oil/fossil fuel (CO2), and is destroying the planet, that vicious circle.
Trump’s inconsistency whether in foreign or domestic policy is very common. He often says one thing one day and the next day contradicts himself. Or he pardons a drug lord in a US prison while accusing Maduro of drug trafficking and also now attacking the president of Colombia for the same reason. He kept declaring at one time that the targeting of Venezuela was about sending drugs to the United States but immediately after the attack he declares it is all about oil, not drugs. On and on…
The bombing of Venezuela also serves as a distraction from the release of the Epstein files. Whether this timing was planned is unclear, but certainly is at mimimum specious.
Not only are peoples worldwide suffering, the current “ruling elite” and their cronies are attacking us, their own people, to satisfy their greed and their beliefs with their big egos; somehow they think they are superior to others, especially people of color. The evidence is definitely there in the history of the world, including present day ramifications: Genius does not belong to any one race or gender or any one nation. Intelligence does not belong exclusively to any race or gender or nation. Unfortunately, at the same time no race or gender in the history of the world lacks its villains or cruel people who crave and sometimes attain power.
On the Democracy Now! January 6, 2026 program Amy Goodman talks with Wall Street Journal reporter David Uberti in a three-part interview. Evidently in the year since Trump took office he has acquired $4 billion dollars for his family through Crypto. That us what is known, There may be more.
Data Centers
On January 6 Amy continues what is a three-part interview with David Uberti of the Wall Street Journal. The third segment is about Data Centers and AI. These Data Centers are being built across the country.
What are they? Google AI: A data center is a physical facility that houses an organization’s critical IT infrastructure, including servers, storage systems, and networking equipment. Essentially, data centers are the hardware backbone, and AI provides the software intelligence to optimize these facilities, creating a symbiotic, high-demand relationship.
Data Centers are controversial across the country because of their high energy use. Another threat is to water; these centers require water to cool them. From Google AI: “Data centers consume massive amounts of water, primarily for cooling servers, with large facilities using millions of gallons daily, comparable to towns of thousands of people, raising concerns in water-stressed areas.”
There are already at least 61 data centers in Minnesota. What is frightening is that several megacenters are being proposed for Minnesota. “With at least 10 planned, these Big Tech projects could consume as much electricity as every home in Minnesota.”
Some communities have succeeded in banning them or putting restrictions on them. Donald Trump is a great supporter of these AI and Data Centers. He is now talking about creating nuclear fusion to power both. While the technology has not yet been developed, he is setting up investments although a usuable product may be decades away. He has now banned individual states from exercising control over Data Centers in their states with an executive order.
Also of concern is their use of water. From Google AI: “Data centers consume massive amounts of water, primarily for cooling servers, with large facilities using millions of gallons daily, comparable to towns of thousands of people, raising concerns in water-stressed areas.”
Minnesota has a lot of water, more than many states. But that does not mean that water should be squandered. It is important to provide drinking water and water for recreation on the Boundary Waters and the many smaller lakes throughout the state, including in Minneapolis. The Mississippi River also starts in northern Minnesota and flows through Minneapolis/St. Paul. It is still an important route for transportation of goods on barges in addition to recreational uses.
David Uberti is predicting that Data Centers will be an important issue in the 2026 election because of their connection to the economy as they can create jobs and boost economies, particularly in rural areas. The question is at what cost to the environment.
Google AI:
Proposed National Moratorium:Over 230 environmental groups (including Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth) have called on the U.S. Congress to pass a national moratorium on new data center construction.
Hyper-Militarism
One topic I have touched on but not addressed directly is Trump’s fascination with and glorification of militarism as the solution to everything. The Trump regime’s recent attacks on the boats off Venezula supposedly carrying drugs and the recent bombing and capture of President Maduro proves he can pick on small countries that have limited resources to resist. He can be the bully on the playground. He did not contact Congress, who are supposed by US law to be consulted for approval for all war; instead he contacted the oil barons, Congress is rightfully upset with him: another flagrant violation of the US Constitution.
Trump started building the military in his first term and has continued with vengeance in his second. Most recent is the passing of the trillion dollar bill for money for the military. Chris Hedges discusses what this means as he interviews veteran military political commentator William Hartung.
Chris Hedges: The historian Arnold Toynbee cites an unchecked rampant militarism as the key factor in the collapse of a civilization. This militarism disembowels a society. It fosters social breakdown, the rise of authoritarian governments and demagogues. It deforms a society until it is unable to respond to existential crises, in our case the climate crisis and a growing social inequality. The ruling elites, Toynbee warns, abandon the common good and become sycophantic appendages of oligarchs and a military machine that functions as a state within a state. The United States now spends nearly a trillion dollars a year on its military.
Trump’s hyper-militarism fits with the strong-man theory on the road to fascism and is related to creating fear.
FEAR
Building fear is one of the main attributes of neo-fascism. Once that fear is built, people look for a strong leader to “save” them. So Trump, although he is personally weak, has to put forth the strong-man image that Stephen Miller has chosen to glorify through hyper-militarism. He is going to Make America Great Again (MEGA). While Trump’s popularity is at an all-time low in the polls, and the myth of MAGA is fading, the reign of terror continues. And it expands after the DOGE cuts of essential jobs and of funding for essential services like FEMA nationally to the cutting of USAID internationally.
On Democracy Now! January 7, 2026 there are several excellent speakers, one addressing the attack on Venezuela and what that means for Latin American countries, especially Colombia. The next speaker discusses Trump’s threats to take over Greenland and what that means, particularly for NATO as Denmark a member., Greenland is a self-governing autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark. Another speaker represents the Inuit population of Greenland and their call for sovereignty. The final speaker is the author of a new book about the LA fires.
These informative speakers have a common theme: FEAR. Fear of bringing the world to the brink of and into war in their respective areas of expertise. In the case of Venezuela it has already resulted in a bombing, the dealth of at least 80 Venezuelan people and the abduction of a leader of a sovereign nation to get control of their resources, especially their oil. Each speaker made the connections of their particular topic to what that means nationally and internationally and expressed concern and fear of situations escalating or hampered by lack of resources due to the Trump administration cuts of programs such as FEMA for disaster relief.
Also included is a clip of Stephen Miller, one of Trump’s policy drivers, glorifying US military strength and how the rest of the world fears the US because of it. I don’t know what history books he has read. As far as I can see none, or he would know that ultimately the use of force in the history of the world always eventually leads to disaster. In the meantime it leads to the death of many innocent people as it did during both WWI and WWII and many wars that preceeded them and as it did in Vietnam and has in Ukraine and Palestine/Gaza. Somalia is also periodically bombed by the U.S. Yemen is another example.
Our Rogue governent under Trump is a government of death and destruction. It has not only continued policies that also were part of death and destruction under different US presidents, it has escalated them.
The attack on America, the flagrant violations of the US Constitution, has escalated exponentially from the abolishing of important agencies to the rise of ICE raids, especially in targeted cities, and the deportation of essential immigrant workers who are important to keeping the US economy functioning. That is, of course, part of the current reign of terror and the neo-fascism that characterizes the Trump regime.
We are manipulated into being afraid. For many it is the threatened cuts to social security, the cuts to programs that are essential to many Americans, such as Medicare and Medicaid, as SNAP (food to survive), and now child care for low-income families. If not affected by those cuts many working US citizens are seeing a significant rise in the cost of their healthcare, a doubling and tripling of rates.
All of these actions are part of the Trump regime’s reign of terror inside the United States and directed at US citizens. Trump’s propaganda then blames the Democrats, and targets Democratic states; Minnesota is one. California, also targeted, has many more more Electoral College votes than Minnesota, as well as more representatives in Congress. But it does not have Ilhan Omar, Somali-born representative for the 5th District in Congress, who Trump has consistently attacked for years. Now he is including the whole Somali population in Minnesota (most are naturalized citizens), which is the second largest group of Somalians in the world after Somalia itself. Trump has declared war on Minnesota where large populations of Hmong and Hispanics also live, especially in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis/St. Paul.
As I write this:
ICE in Minneapolis has crossed the line. On January 7, 2026: With Trump sending 2000 more ICE agents into Minnesota, in Minneapolis today a woman was shot and murdered by ICE. Although there has been violence by ICE agents before, no outright arbitrary shootings such as this naked travesty have previously occurred ln Minnesota. The woman was shot in the head through her car window as she was trying to trying to move her car out of the way. Her behavior was at no time violent.
The outright murder of Renee Nicole Good could be seen as an attempt to create FEAR in Minneapolitans and other Minnesotans if they continue to protest ICE’s presence. As Gov. Walz says in the related video from MeidasTouch below, do not give in to the hope of Trump and Kristi Noem for violence so they can send in the military.
Instead of Democrats vs, Republicans what is at stake is Democracy as Bruce Springsteen describes.Trump and his cronies ignore the Constitution.
Although the US Constitution may not always be perfect, it is still the law of the land and very much better than a fascist state. And so very much better than the reign of terror the Trump regime has inflicted upon US citizens and the world.
Coming back to Democracy Now!, I recommend viewing or listening to the very informative speakers on the January 7 program on democracy now.org or on YouTube, radio,or as a podcast They are also available individually as videos on YouTube.
Each if us continues what Roger Waters calls ‘steadfast perseverance’ in our own way, as do many around us, to oppose what is happening in the world, in the nation, and closer to home in our own world of Minnesota.
Today (January 10, 2026) I witnessed thousands gather in my neighborhood with NO FEAR even after the murder of Renee Good as we marched down Lake Street in Minneapolis. I drove through the traffic jam that preceeded the march as people gathered. I watched sidewalks full of people walk with determination and in collaboration and solidarity speak out with signs and with their walking bodies on another cold and windy day in Minneapolis.
Actions can speak louder than words. High above them an American flag flew from the Midtown building and as the wind unfurled the flag seemed to say these are my people and I am proud. It was a change from the shame I and others have so often felt when America exercises its neo-colonialism and disregard for so many people of the earth and for our own citizens, while other countries often hate the American flag.
As ICE haunts our streets we stand together in nonviolent protest against a tyrant, a Rogue regime creating a Reign of Terror. As others around the country join in protest of the murder of Renee Good and the invasion of our city and state we also stand with other cities that have been targeted and with our new neighbors who have become part of the fabric of America, We are all immigrants. We took the land from the Native Americans but now stand with them—Standing Rock, the pipelines Line 3 and now Line 5—as they stand with us.
I have always struggled to understand Robert Frost when he said “The land was ours before we were the land’s” from his poem The Gift Outright. But now I understand.
The land was ours before we were the land’s.
She was our land more than a hundred years
Before we were her people. She was ours
In Massachusetts, in Virginia,
But we were England’s, still colonials,
Possessing what we still were unpossessed by,
Possessed by what we now no more possessed.
Something we were withholding made us weak
Until we found out that it was ourselves
We were withholding from our land of living,
And forthwith found salvation in surrender.
Such as we were we gave ourselves outright
(The deed of gift was many deeds of war)
To the land vaguely realizing westward,
But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced,
Such as she was, such as she would become.
Frost recited this poem at John Kennedy’s presidential inauguration. Kennedy asked him to change the word ‘would’ in the last line to ‘will.’
America is still becoming,
Woody Guthrie
This Land is Your Land: Woody Guthrie many years after the American Revolution wrote a new song, what many call a national anthem instread of the Star Spangled Banner’s “bombs bursting in air.” Written during the great depession, it still stands as the land has claimed us.
First Verse
This land is your land, this land is my land From California to the New York island, From the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters; This land was made for you and me.
Sixth Verse
As I went walking I saw a sign there, And on the sign it said “No Trespassing.” But on the other side it didn’t say nothing. That side was made for you and me.
Seventh verse
In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people, By the relief office I seen my people; As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking Is this land made for you and me?
Eighth verse
Nobody living can ever stop me, As I go walking that freedom highway; Nobody living can ever make me turn back This land was made for you and me.
Sue Ann
RELATED — One of many media responses to the shooting in Minneapolis with filmed clips from Kristi Noem, from a person living in the area, and from members of Congress in Washington DC, along with a response from Gov. Walz.
I have not discussed the role of the media in this Reign of Terror. It is a very important role and of course touches all else I have written here. Here is an revealing commentary from FAIR about the coverage of many mainstream corporate media responses to the video of the death of Renee Good that is a critique of the effect of much of their coverage that illustrates how they operate. They may not lie, but they often waffle the truth.
It’s the law, it’s your oath, it’s your duty. You can, you must refuse illegal orders.
They say empires last about 250 years so it’s time for the United States of America to retire from assumed global democratic leadership, or re-up.
It is difficult to believe that out of more than 150 U.S. “manned” aircraft not one reported crew member failed to refuse to fly the illegal mission to bomb Venezuela and kidnap its president in January 2026. An unlawful order is one that violates human rights including harming civilians (not to mention the land). The Geneva Convention is a part of every service member’s education. One hundred civilian and military deaths have so far been reported since the U.S. military invasion of Venezuela.
In addition to violating international human rights President Trump’s ordered incursion into Venezuela violates the Constitution because only Congress can declare war. The president failed to inform Congress before sending-in American troops — an impeachable offense. Furthermore he never requested an AUMF, authorization to use military force against a nation not attacking the U.S. The president claimed fentanyl is killing Americans however fentanyl is imported from Mexico in Central America, not from Venezuela in South America.
Perhaps former geography instructor and former vice-presidential candidate, Tim Walz, Governor of Minnesota could have clarified the China-Mexico-fentanyl (not cocoaine) drug connection for Mr. Trump. The president just sent 2,100 federal ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents into Minneapolis on “Operation Metro Surge” where one Latin American man was arrested on January 6 and one white neighborhood woman was shot dead on January 7.
Confusion about the legality of war, what drug is what and where and how a drug kills Americans who actually buy, use and are victims of drugs, adds to the muddy responsibility and consequences of officials being ordered to do something illegal, or simply acting illegally because they are poorly trained and pissed off.
It’s the law, it’s your oath, it’s your duty. You can, you must refuse illegal orders.
Six Democratic congressmen and women, all U.S. veterans, released a video in November 2025 to educate military and intelligence officers about illegal airstrike orders on boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific seas.
Sen. Mark Kelly, 61, of Arizona, former Navy pilot and U.S. astronaut, married to former congresswoman Gabby Giffords who was shot in the head in an assassination attempt in 2011, is the most well-known of the six.
Sen. Elissa Slotkin, 50, of Michigan, former CIA analyst and Department of Defense international security expert was inspired to run for a House seat in 2019 when she saw her opponent smiling at a White House celebration over the repeal of the Obama Affordable Care Act. After two terms as a Representative Slotkin won her Senate seat in 2025. She is remembered for her response to Trump’s State of the Union address when she said Ronald Reagan would be “rolling in his grave” over the American president’s cozying up to Putin. Slotkin assesses America’s greatest security threat as the decline of the middle class.
Two Pennsylvania House members and military veterans spoke on the Refuse Illegal Orders video. President Trump called all six speakers traitors who should be charged with sedition, punishable by death and hanged.
Chrissy Houlahan, 59, represents part of the Philadelphia area. She is an engineer and former Air Force officer who grew up as a Navy brat and was first elected to Congress in 2019. Houlahan, on the Armed Services and Defense Intelligence committees, lobbies for better military technology, trans military rights and same sex marriage in addition to single payer healthcare and negotiated drug prices. She opposed President Biden’s troop withdrawal in Syria, is concerned about Netanyahu’s war in Palestine and wanted to give fighter jets to Ukraine.
Chris Deluzio, 42, from Pittsburgh, went to the U.S. Naval Academy and Georgetown Law. He served in the Iraq War and is in his second House term. Deluzio is a member of the Labor and Progressive caucuses, focusing on suppression of voters’ rights, labor union rights and veterans affairs.
Maggie Goodlander, 40, of New Hampshire, is a first term congresswoman serving on the Armed Services Committee. With a law degree from Yale she worked in Naval intelligence on terrorism for over a decade and advised the House Judiciary Committee during the first Trump impeachment. She leads the No Unauthorized War with Venezuela move to prohibit any federal funds for military force unless Congress passes an AUMF. In addition to working on congressional war powers she is active in abortion rights since experiencing a horrible natural stillbirth in a hotel bathtub while awaiting a medical procedure. Goodlander, from a prominent political family, is married to Jake Sulllivan who was President Biden’s National Security Advisor.
Jason Crow, 46, is in his third term representing the eastern Denver, Colorado area. He was an Army ranger working in counter insurgency with three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan earning a bronze star. After military service he went into law and politics. Crow is on the House Foreign Affairs and Intelligence committees. He has been criticized for accepting campaign donations from a company that does business with Israeli Defense Forces but lately called for pressure on Netanyahu over humanitarian violations in Gaza. Crow urged President Biden to send fighter jets to Ukraine noting that “Russia is not our friend” and we have 60,000 American troops in harm’s way in Europe. He sees Ukraine as an American security issue rather than a political issue.
So it’s a birthday year in the U.S. with affordability the top domestic concern but Venezuela and whether to buy or conquer Greenland on the president’s menu. Sounds like the two parties are not listening to each other.
Susu Jeffrey is a poet and political activist living in Minneapolis. Her father, Harry Jeffrey (R-Ohio), was co-author of the “G.I. Bill of Rights” in the House of Representatives in 1944.
Wings of Change is entirely reader supported. Wings invites you to subscribe. Join us on Wings of Change
The military-industrial-complex has grown into a monster so influential and powerful that even its earliest critics likely never foresaw its evolution.
Where will it go from here, and can anything stop it? Bill Hartung tackles this question.
Chris Hedges: The historian Arnold Toynbee cites an unchecked rampant militarism as the key factor in the collapse of a civilization. This militarism disembowels a society. It fosters social breakdown, the rise of authoritarian governments and demagogues. It deforms a society until it is unable to respond to existential crises, in our case the climate crisis and a growing social inequality. The ruling elites, Toynbee warns, abandon the common good and become sycophantic appendages of oligarchs and a military machine that functions as a state within a state. The United States now spends nearly a trillion dollars a year on its military.
William Hartung and Ben Freeman in their new book, The Trillion Dollar War Machine, examine the role of Pentagon contractors, who receive more than half of the Pentagon’s budget, to the high tech fantasies of Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurs such as Peter Teal, who pedal unproven and often unworkable technologies to foster, in their eyes, new forms of warfare, including the mass colonization and militarization of space.
The authors have unmasked the bought and paid for enablers of the war machine, including politicians, lobbyists, the media, Hollywood, and think tanks. They explain how this unchecked militarism not only enriches a tiny wealthy elite at our expense, but perpetuates costly and self-defeating military fiascos around the globe, making us less safe and diminishing global power.
This war machine, the authors write, is different from the military-industrial complex President Eisenhower warned us about in his parting speech in 1961. The Pentagon budget is now twice what it was, adjusted for inflation, when Eisenhower gave this nationwide address.
Corporations such as Lockheed Martin, which has 40 to50 billion dollars in annual Pentagon contracts, is able to buy up politicians and provide sinecures for former military and defense officials that ensure loyalty and huge contracts, even for redundant and flawed weapons systems. Those running our war industry know little to nothing about the countries they seek to dominate, leading to debacle after debacle, including two decades of military disasters in the Middle East.
Yet they have a vice grip not only on the media but Hollywood, the gaming industry, professional sports and academia. These institutions in lockstep with the war industry pedal the myths of American exceptionalism, America’s supposed superior virtues and civilization and the mantra of endless war.
Dissident voices especially in Congress such as Senators William Proxmire, Frank Church, James Aberesque, and George McGovern willing to question the folly of this outofcontrol militarism, one that is accelerating our decline, have been largely purged from public office and public debate.
Wings of Change is entirely reader supported.
Wings invites you to subscribe. Join us on Wings of Change
“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 . . .
Wings of Change is entirely reader supported. Wings invites you to subscribe. Join us on Wings of Change
‘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.
Wings of Change is entirely reader supported. Wings invites you to subscribe. Join us on Wings of Change
E-ICE (ICE crimes are documented everywhere; their purpose and violence are inexcusable)
A word about violence
I am reminded of the French Revolution when the “good guys” the revolutionaries, cut off the heads of the “bad guys” the aristocracy, in what was called the “reign of terror.” Bloody awful. The American Revolution consisted of many battles for a period of years and resulted in many deaths on both the British and American sides.
Now we have in true American fashion the “good guys” and the “bad guys.” For some Americans Trump is the “good guy” who is going to save America. For others of us, Trump and his cohorts if not the personification of evil, are definitely the “bad guys” who are trying to destroy the United States of America and democracy although they claim the opposite.
The unfortunate tradition of violence was brought to new depths of depravity in WWII. I won’t say by the Germans, but by the Third Reich. Now Trump and Co. practice cruelty and violence, whether in support of the Gaza genocide or by stripping Americans of rights and driving them toward and into poverty or by arresting, imprisoning, and deporting many recent immigrants. Those who resist have basically used nonviolent strategies and tactics. Nonviolence as a concept and a way of protest and revolution did not exist in coherent theory, policy. and action until the 20th century, with major credit to Gandhi.
The Nazi Brown Shirts, later the Gestapo, who considered themselves supposedly above the law as a terrorist police force, are seen as a precursor of ICE. Recently someone commented to me that she does not like to mention other national groups like the French or Germans or the British treatment of the Irish when referring to the genocide in Gaza as if it were somehow their fault. Any references should include the US. Violence and genocide are no stranger to the GOOD OLD USA lest we forget our shameful history. Hitler actually commented that he learned a lot of his techniques from the treatment by the US of native peoples.
Historical Evidence Overview (Google AI)
Yes, historical evidence and scholarly analysis indicate that Adolf Hitler and other Nazi officials studied and were inspired by US policies toward Native Americans and Black Americans, especially regarding racial law and the concept of territorial conquest.
Key points regarding this influence:
“Lebensraum” and Manifest Destiny: Hitler explicitly viewed the American westward expansion under “Manifest Destiny” as a successful model for Germany’s own quest for Lebensraum (living space) in Eastern Europe. He often referred to the peoples of Eastern Europe as his “redskins” and saw the clearing of “natives” to make room for “racially pure” settlers as a precedent.
Quotes on Extermination: According to Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Toland, Hitler told his inner circle that his concept of concentration camps and the practicality of genocide owed much to his studies of U.S. and English history. He reportedly praised the efficiency of America’s extermination of “red savages” by starvation and uneven combat, and noted how the U.S. government forced Native Americans onto reservations where their populations rapidly declined due to disease and starvation.
Legal Discrimination: Nazi lawyers and scholars, including in the drafting of the Nuremberg Laws, closely studied American race laws, such as Jim Crow laws, anti-miscegenation laws, and race-based immigration restrictions, as models for disenfranchising and discriminating against Jewish citizens.
Popular Culture: Hitler was an avid reader and lifelong fan of the German novelist Karl May’s Western adventure novels, which heavily featured the “Indian wars” and a “noble savage” archetype. He recommended these books to his generals for tactical inspiration and saw them as an example of a “racially pure” (Aryan) people conquering a continent.
In essence, the user’s assertion aligns with significant historical evidence that Hitler drew parallels and practical inspiration from the US historical treatment of its indigenous populations as a blueprint for his own genocidal and expansionist ambitions.
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.
So what is next?
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
Wings of Change is entirely reader supported. Wings invites you to subscribe. Join us on Wings of Change
This song confronts the economic warfare, stolen resources, and military threats facing Venezuela from US imperialism. It traces a line from historic extraction to today’s financial blockade—and affirms the right of a sovereign people to resist.
📌 WHY THIS SONG NOW? As military threats against Venezuela escalate, this song focuses on the less visible front: the economic war. For years, Venezuelan assets—from CITGO to gold reserves—have been frozen or seized by U.S. and European banks under the banner of “sanctions.” This is a song about that theft.
CREDITS • Music & Lyrics: Ben Grosscup • Bass, Banjo & Studio Production: Chet Gardiner (http://chetgardiner.com/) • Video Production: Ben Grosscup, with support from Chet Gardiner • Lyrical inspiration: Based on the chorus and structure of David Rovics’ “Terrorizing Venezuela.” Read the original here: https://davidrovics.substack.com/p/te… 🔗
As the Trump administration escalates its military campaign against Venezuela, [DN!] speaks to Venezuelan journalist Andreína Chávez about the latest developments.
Amy Goodman:
Andreína Chávez, speaking to us from Caracas. We want to thank you for being with us, and encourage people to read your article at Drop Site News. The article, “’War of the entire people’: Venezuela’s Grassroots Rise to Resist Trump’s Naval Blockade.”
Wings of Change is entirely reader supported. Wings invites you to subscribe. Join us on Wings of Change
Trump started building the military in his first term and has continued with vengeance in his second. Most recent is the passing of the trillion dollar bill for money for the military. Chris Hedges discusses what this means as he interviews veteran military political commentator William Hartung.
ICE in Minneapolis has crossed the line. On January 7, 2026: With Trump sending 2000 more ICE agents into Minnesota, in Minneapolis today 
As ICE haunts our streets we stand together in nonviolent protest against a tyrant, a Rogue regime creating a Reign of Terror. As others around the country join in protest of the murder of Renee Good and the invasion of our city and state we also stand with other cities that have been targeted and with our new neighbors who have become part of the fabric of America, We are all immigrants. We took the land from the Native Americans but now stand with them—Standing Rock, the pipelines Line 3 and now Line 5—as they stand with us.
Wings of Change is entirely reader supported.