Tyranny

Editor:

We are seeing the consequences of a lawless federal government play out before our eyes.

An attack on Venezuela, which turns out to be not “regime change”, but only dictator change, has been revealed to be a clumsy effort to benefit multinational oil companies, not Venezuelan (or US) citizens. The long-term strategy for this operation seems even more vague than were the plans for invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. We will be paying for those follies for decades, most especially in the health of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who served in those wars. We all know local people who were impacted. Americans across the political spectrum are overwhelmingly opposed to ill-conceived adventurism in foreign countries.

Aggressive, unprovoked international military actions abroad with bellicose nationalist rhetoric are a characteristic of fascist regimes.

Closer to home, Minneapolis is being attacked by our own federal government. Masked goons are marauding in the streets, demanding that people show their IDs, breaking car windows, forcing their way into homes, dragging people from cars, snatching people from their workplaces, showing up at schools, and in a terrifying incident last week, murdering a citizen in her car.

Deployments of paramilitary agents to suppress nonviolent dissent is a characteristic of fascist regimes.

It is a supreme irony that the president is threatening Iran because their Revolutionary Guard is shooting peaceful protestors at the same time he is deploying his own newly empowered federal police force against our own citizens. A second irony is that “don’t tread on me” second amendment champions have warned us that our freedoms could be stolen by an oppressive government, yet they have been silent in the face of real threats today.

We may feel these events are occurring in distant cities, but ICE is deploying into rural Minnesota, too. Michigan actually has a higher immigrant population than Minnesota. ICE has already detained more than 2300 people in our state, including from the UP. Ninety-two percent of people detained since September 2025 have no criminal record whatsoever.

According to census data, 2,247 immigrants live in Houghton County, and many of them are now alarmed for their safety. It is frightening that the security of our friends and neighbors may depend on the degree to which our state leaders pander to the president.

I urge everyone in the Copper Country to join together to oppose federal tyranny.

Sarah Green

Calumet

Lies and hate

Dear Editor:

I was floored when I read Erick Erickson’s editorial in this newspaper on January 12th. His editorials are invariably filled with lies and hate, but this particular piece of MAGA propaganda claiming that Renee Good was trying to hit ICE agent Jonathan Ross–who was therefore justified in shooting her–was beyond the pale. What was the Daily Mining Gazette thinking when they chose to print this dangerous text?

Anyone not blinded by MAGA-induced psychosis who watched this event on videos recorded from multiple angles can plainly see that the bumper of Ms. Good’s car was already past Ross when he fired the first the first shot; the second and third shot came through the driver’s window. It was murder. Those are the facts, and it was completely irresponsible for this newspaper to print anything contrary. Newspapers should print facts, not lies and propaganda.

This event and several similar travesties that have sadly garnered little attention should highlight ICE’s mission of fear and terror. Their masked and unidentified agents, with minimal training and no accountability, are instigated by Donald Trump’s racism. The parallels between ICE and the Nazi SS of 1930s and 1940s Germany are obvious, and anyone who can’t see them is either just as racist or completely ignorant of history or both.

Our nation is at a crossroads, unlike anything since the Civil War, and all institutions in this country, including small local newspapers, need to recognize the urgency of this moment. History will judge the heroes and villains as it always does, and I promise you, Trump and MAGA will be the villains.

What side of history does this newspaper wish to be on? Pleading neutrality is not an option. You are either with the oppressors, or you are emphatically against them. Claiming not to take sides so as to avoid causing offense is naïve and cowardly, and in the end only assists the oppressors. Is that how this newspaper wants to be remembered 20 or 50 years from now?

I call on this newspaper to formally retract the article and send a letter of apology to the family of Renee Good. Furthermore, it should print no further hate propaganda from Erickson or similar of his ilk. Voltaire said, “those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” I demand this newspaper to stop printing MAGA absurdities. We have had enough atrocities.

Charles Goodwin

Hancock, MI