On Wednesday Renee Good of Minneapolis was killed by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). She was the 16h killing at the hands of ICE agents under Trump; 30 more have died in ICE custody. Yet murders are only the tip of this ICEberg. The point of raids by masked gunmen is to terrorize immigrants, refugees, and their supporters. Renee was collateral damage.
On Saturday, more than 1,000 rallies were held across the USA to protest Renee Good’s murder and ICE terrorism. In Hastings, CFOW partnered with NYCD16/15 Indivisible to hold a rally attended by about 150 people. Lots of pictures from the rally are posted on our Facebook group page.
The violence that took Renee Good’s life is directly linked to the violence driving and characterizing our many wars. Not just under Trump, but over the last several decades: Afghanistan, Iraq, Gaza, Iran, Venezuela, and (perhaps) soon Greenland. Under Trump, the violence of the Empire comes home to roost. The most visible form of this violence is displayed by the raids against immigrants and low-income communities by ICE and the Border Patrol. But violence and threat of violence is everywhere. Overturning people’s lives is a “soft” form of this violence, terrifying people into obedience and docility out of fear that they may be deported or fired from their job. Indeed, tens of thousands of people have lost their work and their income because of Trump’s and the Republican’s attacks on federal workers, low-income people, and states and cities that have voted the wrong way.
It makes more and more sense to see Trump and his entourage as a 21st century Third Reich. ICE is the new Gestapo, Trump’s private army, his SS. We see this in Venezuela and Minneapolis, where violence and the threat of more violence is intended to compel submission and cooperation, surrender to ward off the next blow. Trump’s impulsive destruction is indeed reminiscent of the Hitler regime: this week Trump declared that he would increase next year’s military budget from $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion. In the same week, by Executive Order he withdrew the USA from 66 international organizations. Battleship America: solitary, proud, fearful, and armed to the teeth.
Chaos, militarism, and terrorism at home and abroad are something that Americans are stoutly resisting. And we will continue to resist. Work for peace.
SOME ESSAYS ILLUMINATING THIS WEEK
(Video) “It’s All About the Oil, Stupid!”: Mehdi Hasan on Trump Attacking Venezuela & Kidnapping Maduro
From Democracy Now! [January 6, 2026]
---- Zeteo‘s Mehdi Hasan outlines Donald Trump’s “Donroe Doctrine,” a throwback foreign policy exemplified by the Trump administration’s shocking intervention in Venezuela. With his claims of U.S. sovereignty over nations in the Western Hemisphere, “Trump’s basically saying, ‘Well, this is ours, and China, Russia can have their spheres of influence.’ And it is very 19th-century-esque. ’Let’s divide up the world between the powers.’” This orientation is a major shift from U.S. foreign policy of recent decades, such as the 2003 invasion of Iraq, when interventionist actions were framed around ideological motivations, explains Hasan. “They said it was WMDs. They said it was democracy. They said it was al-Qaeda. They at least pretended that it wasn’t about the oil.” Meanwhile, Trump is brazen about his aims to seize control of Venezuela’s resources and demonstrate that “might is right.” [See the Program]
(Video) “What Are You Hiding?” Minnesota AG Keith Ellison Says ICE Killing of Renee Good Must Be Investigated
From Democracy Now! [January 9, 2026]
---- Minnesota state investigators say the FBI is blocking them from investigating the ICE shooting of Renee Good, a mother of three and award-winning poet who was killed in her car on January 7. The federal government’s claims of immunity for the ICE officer — identified as Iraq War veteran Jonathan Ross — go against precedent, as does its refusal to cooperate with state authorities, says Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who is demanding a local and state-led investigation into Good’s homicide and an end to the Trump administration’s “smear tactics” against Good. “This is Third Reich stuff,” adds Ellison, decrying the escalation in aggressive tactics employed by federal immigration officers in Minneapolis and throughout the country. “This is an unprecedented attack on American institutions.” [See the Program]
As Tehran cracks down, Trump’s likely instincts are to stay out
By Michael Klare, TomDispatch [January 10, 2026]
---- For most of us, Friday, February 6, 2026, is likely to feel no different than Thursday, February 5th. It will be a work or school day for many of us. It might involve shopping for the weekend or an evening get-together with friends, or any of the other mundane tasks of life. But from a world-historical perspective, that day will represent a dramatic turning point, with far-reaching and potentially catastrophic consequences. For the first time in 54 years, the world’s two major nuclear-weapons powers, Russia and the United States, will not be bound by any arms-control treaties and so will be legally free to cram their nuclear arsenals with as many new warheads as they wish — a step both sides appear poised to take. [Read More]
NEWS NOTES
After the events in Minneapolis and the escalation of rhetoric and violence from the Trump team, there is a movement supported by the Bernie Sanders people to impeach Department of Homeland Security boss Kristi Noem. Learn more and sign a petition here.
To beat the fascists, we need a strong and progressive labor/trade union movement. There will be dozens of battlegrounds for labor in 2026. Two useful guides to what’s coming are “A Guide to the Big Left and Labor Fights in 2026,” from Jacobin Magazine; and “One Battle After Another: The Big Contract Fights Coming in 2026,” from Labor Notes.
Short-listed for an Oscar is the new documentary film “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” From Democracy Now!: “Two years ago this month, the world was gripped by a series of shocking recordings of a 6-year-old girl in Gaza pleading for help as she sat trapped in a car riddled with bullets alongside the bodies of her cousins, aunt and uncle, who had just been killed by Israeli forces as the family attempted to flee the Israeli ground invasion of Gaza City. Emergency responders with the Palestine Red Crescent Society attempted to secure safe passage to rescue the child, an elementary school student named Hind Rajab, but Israeli forces also targeted and destroyed an ambulance as it arrived on the scene, killing medical workers Yusuf al-Zeino and Ahmed al-Madhoun, before firing again at the family’s car, killing Rajab.” Clips from the film and interviews with the film’s director can be watched here.
MAMDANI WATCH
How Zohran Mamdani’s Campaign Crafted a Winning Message
From Jacobin Magazine [January 7, 2026]
---- We spoke to Zohran Mamdani’s campaign communications director, Andrew Epstein, about how a disciplined and creative message, mass canvassing, viral videos, and an end run around mainstream media helped the campaign break through. A campaign for office starts with finding the right candidate. Zohran Mamdani combines world-historic “rizz” with deep socialist ideological commitment. But his mayoral campaign won because it successfully introduced that candidate — and the political vision he embodies — to millions through a mass field operation alongside a brilliant, funny, and moving communications operation. One hundred thousand volunteers knocked on three million doors, an endeavor we explored in a previous interview with Mamdani campaign field director Tascha Van Auken (who has since been tapped to lead the mayor’s new Office of Mass Engagement). Here we turn to the communications operation, in which a team of strategists, speechwriters, designers, and filmmakers painted a giant love letter to New York City and inoculated voters against tens of millions of dollars in smears and attacks. [Read More]
The Power of the Source
By Nikil Saval, New York Review of Books [January 7, 2026]
----More than anything else, it was organizing around working-class demands—housing, transit, childcare—that drove Mamdani’s victory. This makes it replicable. The Pennsylvania left is currently fighting on multiple, analogous fronts. Its elected representatives—including, at the local level, two city council members in Philadelphia who ran as part of the Working Families Party, and, at the heights, progressive stalwart Summer Lee representing Pittsburgh in Congress—have led efforts to win worker protections with teeth; rental assistance paired with eviction diversion; and, statewide, a “solar for schools” grant program and a first-of-its-kind holistic home repair initiative that is being replicated throughout the country and in Congress. [Read More]
CFOW NUTS & BOLTS
Please consider getting involved with Concerned Families of Westchester. Weather permitting we meet for a protest/rally each Saturday in Hastings, at 12 noon at the VFW Plaza (Warburton and Spring St.) The Northwest Yonkers Neighbors for Black Lives Matter holds a Monday afternoon vigil at 5:30 pm at the corner of Warburton Ave and Odell. The CFOW newsletter can be read on Substack, and is archived at https://cfow.blogspot.com; and news of interest and coming events is posted on our CFOW Facebook group. Another Facebook group focuses on the climate crisis. If you would like to join one of our Zoom meetings, each Tuesday and Thursday at noon, please send a return email for the link. If you would like to support our work by making a CONTRIBUTION, please make out your check to “Frank Brodhead,” write “CFOW” on the memo line, and send your check to CFOW, PO Box 364, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706. Thanks.
REWARDS!
This week’s Rewards for stalwart newsletter readers remember some of the work of Bob Weir, guitarist for the Grateful Dead who passed away last week. Among his great songs are “Truckin’,” “Sugar Magnolia,” and “The Music Never Stopped.” Lots more on-line. Enjoy!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
CFOW WEEKLY READER
FEATURED ARTICLES & ESSAYS
Notes on Unbearable Stupidity
By Rebecca Solnit, Meditations in an Emergency [January 6, 2026]
---- Part of the unbearable stupidity of the current administration is its feckless enthusiasm for doing things that seem like manly feats of strength to manosphere idiots and also make this country weaker. So much of the stupid here is also about stupid versions of masculinity, all the way down to the dim bulb that is Pete Hegseth and his belief that pushups are a top military strategy. The Trump Administration is an autoimmune disorder sabotaging the things that actually made America if not great at least powerful: its economy, its higher education system, its international relations, its crucial immigrant workforce, its functioning federal government, its public health systems, the rule of law, and lots of other things like food safety and clean water. Part of this disorder is a devout belief that violence is power, when it is what you resort to when the power of persuasion or alliance or other forms of building lasting power have failed, and often how you further sabotage those powers that come through relationship and respect. [Read More]
Deportation and the Silence That Follows
By Taiwo Adepetun, The Nation [January 10, 2026]
---- It was still dark outside on that February morning in Chicago, the first week of February 2025, with the kind of cold that bites through your coat and makes you want to stay under the blanket forever. Mom was in the kitchen, boiling water for tea. The house smelled like bread and Vicks. I was half-awake, scrolling through my phone, when someone started banging on the door. Hard. “Immigration!” My father froze. He looked at my mom, then at me. For a few seconds, nobody moved. My mom whispered, “Don’t open it.” But he did. Maybe it was pride. Maybe it was fear. Maybe he thought cooperating would make it all OK. The people at the door said it would be quick, just a few questions. They said he’d be back soon. They said a lot of things that didn’t turn out to be true. By sunrise, my father was gone. [Read More]
Trump’s War on Women: Bodies, Roles, and Futures at Risk
By Karen J. Greenberg, Informed Comment [January 2026]
---- Well beyond a simple cascade of insulting words, the commander-in-chief and his allies have deemed women the enemy. And not surprisingly, under the circumstances, they are now distinctly under attack. From day one of his second term as president, Trump has made his intention to rid the government of women crystal clear — with some window-dressing exceptions. Without mentioning women per se, he nonetheless targeted them on his very first day in office. Executive Order 14151 vowed to end the “forced illegal and immoral discrimination programs” of the Biden era. (On his first day in office, Biden had issued an executive order opening the door for “underserved communities” via a “whole of government equity agenda.”). Trump’s EO, however, decreed an end to DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) and to any appointments that were meant to reflect diversity hiring, claiming that such policies “demonstrated immense public waste and shameful discrimination.” Immediately, women began to be flung from their government perches. Those holding high positions were the first to go. [Read More]
WAR ON VENEZUELA
Who’s Really Running Venezuela?
By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies, Code Pink [January 9, 2026]
---- As the Senate voted to advance a War Powers Resolution on Venezuela on January 8th, Republican Senator Susan Collins declared that she did not agree with “a sustained engagement “running” Venezuela.” The world was mystified when President Trump first said that the United States would “run” Venezuela. He has since made it clear that he wants to control Venezuela by imposing a U.S. monopoly on selling its oil to the rest of the world, to trap the Venezuelan government in a subservient relationship with the United States. … After the U.S. invasion and abduction of President Maduro on January 3rd, Delcy Rodriguez was sworn in as Acting President, reaffirming her loyalty to President Maduro and taking charge of running the country in his absence. But who is Delcy Rodriguez, and how is she likely to govern Venezuela? As a compliant and coerced U.S. puppet, or as the leader of an undefeated and independent Venezuela? [Read More]
The Media’s Coverage of the Venezuelan Coup Has Been Dreadful
By Jack Mirkinson, The Nation [January 9, 2025]
---- We live in a turbulent, unpredictable world. Few things feel certain. But there are some truths we can hold fast to. The sun will rise. We’ll grow older each day. And the media will bend over backward to celebrate US imperialism. For evidence of this, just review the past week’s coverage of President Donald Trump’s illegal abduction and overthrow of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Once the kidnapping operation swung into gear, our most prominent newsrooms obediently adopted their time-honored patterns: indulging war lust, sidestepping or downplaying the rule of law, and uncritically cheerleading yet another violent foreign intervention by the US military. A full accounting of the crimes against journalism arising from this jingoistic outlook would fill a lengthy book. In lieu of that, let’s simply review a few of the most notable lowlights from a dreadful week of media coverage of the Venezuela coup. [Read More]
Trump says he’ll unleash Venezuela’s oil. But who wants it?
By Jake Bittle, Grist [January 5, 2026]
---- Shortly after launching a dramatic raid in which U.S. forces abducted Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro on Saturday, President Donald Trump justified the action with a promise to revive Venezuela’s moribund oil industry. The country has by far the largest claimed reserves of crude oil in the world, accounting for almost a fifth of the planet’s remaining known crude oil, but its production has plummeted under Maduro, who has ruled the country since 2013. … This intervention comes at a pivotal moment for the global oil industry, which continues to stare down the prospect of a broad transition to renewable energy. For this reason, it’s not obvious that future markets can justify a surge of investment in Venezuela. [Read More]
THE WAR ON PALESTINE
Gaza as a Linchpin: Six Reasons Why Netanyahu is Prolonging Conflict in the Middle East
By Ramzy Baroud, Znet [January 10, 2026]
---- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has concluded his visit to the United States, returning home after reportedly securing yet another round of political backing from Donald Trump. As with previous encounters, the meeting provided Netanyahu with diplomatic cover and strategic reassurance, reinforcing Israel’s ability to sustain its military posture in Gaza and across the region with limited external constraint. The talks, held between December 29 and January 1, did not signal a shift toward de-escalation. Instead, they underscored Netanyahu’s central objective: preserving a prolonged state of war in the Middle East. This is not necessarily about maintaining full-scale genocide in Gaza at all times, but about keeping the Strip trapped in a condition of permanent instability—one that allows Israel to violate the October 10 ceasefire agreement at will, recalibrating violence while avoiding the political fallout associated with openly sustained mass killing. This approach exposes a central contradiction in Israel’s official narrative. Netanyahu and leading figures within his extremist coalition repeatedly claimed that Israel has already “won” the war. If that is the case, why insist on keeping the Gaza file open? The answer lies in a convergence of political, ideological, and strategic calculations. [Read More]
Israel Blocked 37 Aid Groups From Gaza – and Then Claimed Credit for Their Work
By Nir Hasson, Ha’aretz [Israel] [January 1, 2026]
---- Israel’s decision to prevent 37 international aid organizations from continuing their work in the Gaza Strip is the latest step in a policy that has been both cruel and amateurish in its treatment of Gaza’s civilian population. Like other dark regimes around the world, the Israeli government has spun a web of lies and conspiracies around international organizations in an effort to blur responsibility for its own grave failure. Since the war began, Israel has relieved itself of responsibility for Gaza’s civilians, despite its obligations under international law. That responsibility has instead been pushed onto UN agencies and international humanitarian organizations. … More fundamentally, Israel did not deliver this aid. At most, it authorized its entry. The funding, procurement and distribution were carried out by the same international organizations that Israeli officials have consistently attacked. After taking public credit for their work, Israel has now stripped many of them of permission to continue operating. [Read More]
WAR ON GREENLAND?
Is Greenland next? Denmark says, not so fast
By Pavel Devyatkin, Responsible Statecraft[January 5, 2025]
---- Trump keeps insisting that the U.S. needs Greenland for national security, even threatening to use military force or economic pressure to get it from Denmark. He has also threatened steep tariffs if Denmark doesn’t hand it over, claiming “people really don’t even know if Denmark has any legal right to it, but if they do, they should give it up.” This isn’t the careful diplomacy America used to practice. Trump’s approach has triggered protests from Denmark, and for the first time ever, Denmark’s intelligence service is labeling America a possible security threat. Trump has appointed Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry as his special envoy to Greenland. Landry called it an honor to help “make Greenland a part of the U.S.” Denmark’s Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen called the appointment “deeply upsetting” and Landry’s comments “completely unacceptable.” [Read More] - ALSO, Pavel Devyatkin is interviewed on Democracy Now!, “Trump’s Plan to Seize Greenland Would “Militarize the Arctic,” Trample Indigenous Rights,” [Link].
WAR WITH CHINA?
The Perilous Shift in U.S. Weapons Sales to Taiwan
By Jianlu Bi, Foreign Policy in Focus [December 31, 2025]
---- The recent announcement by the U.S. government of a record-breaking $11.1 billion arms package for Taiwan marks a dangerous escalation that threatens to shatter the fragile peace of the Taiwan Strait. Although Washington cloaks these transactions in the language of “regional stability,” a deep analysis of the hardware and the timing reveals a predatory strategy. This is no longer about maintaining a “defensive” balance; it is a calculated effort to turn Taiwan into a front-line arsenal, pushing the region toward the brink of a conflict that neither the people of Taiwan nor the world can afford. [Read More]
THE CLIMATE CRISIS
The Core Meaning of the Climate Emergency for Movement Organizers
By Sinan Eden, Znet [January 9, 2026]
---- There is one crucial argument that the climate justice movement carried with it. For a brief period of time, it seemed like it was integrated into the general knowledge of social movements. It wasn’t. The argument is about the meaning of climate emergency. It is not an argument about public discourse or even about policy. It is an argument carried at the core of the climate justice movement, an argument directed at all social movements. This argument wasn’t integrated into social movements’ collective knowledge. This short note aims to clarify that the climate crisis is not just another crisis among crises and not a topic among many topics. There is something substantially unique about the climate crisis that transforms the terrain of struggle entirely and for everyone. [Read More] - ALSO OF INTEREST - “A solar panel is the new peace sign,” by Bill McKibben [January 3, 2026] [Link]
Trump’s Vendetta Against Wind Is Gutting Jobs and Raising Prices
By Antonia Juhasz, Rolling Stone [November 23, 2025]
---- President Donald Trump’s bizarre war on offshore wind is getting worse — and it’s screwing workers and anyone who uses electricity. In the past year, Trump’s policies have resulted in the loss of more than half of the planned power set to come from offshore wind, according to a new report by the Energy Industries Council released last week. People all across the country are facing relentlessly skyrocketing energy prices, with average electricity bills in July up 9.5 percent from just one year ago. Rising energy costs were a key issue influencing voters in elections this month and are expected to again play an outsized role in the crucial 2026 midterms. … Trump sat in the White House in August and declared, “We don’t allow windmills and we don’t want solar panels,” as if the entire nation, including its offshore waters, were one of his private resorts rather than the property of the American people. Three days later, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy cut almost $700 million in funding for 12 offshore wind projects, including the $47 million to Sparrows Point Steel. One project in Humboldt Bay, California, lost out on more than $426 million. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum questioned if using federal lands for wind and solar projects is even permissible under the law and began issuing stop-work orders and attempting to withdraw leases for existing offshore wind operations. [Read More] ALSO OF INTEREST - “Building Trades Unions Rally Against Trump’s Attacks on Wind,” By Paul Prescod, Jacobin [December 30, 2025] [Link].
THE STATE OF THE UNION
Goebbels’s Ghost and Miller’s Dream of a “Unified Reich.”
By Henry Giroux, Counterpunch [January 9, 2026]
---- White House adviser Stephen Miller seems torn from the darkest archive of the 1930s. His ideological fever, spittle-laced tirades, compulsive lying, and theatrical rage are not excesses but instruments: performative rituals through which cruelty is normalized and racism is taught. What he stages is not only a ruthless infatuation with power and updated fascist politics but also a psychic unraveling masquerading as authority. The spirit animating his rhetoric, saturated with hate, fabrication, and manic spectacle, recalls a historical moment when cruelty became a governing principle and racism the moral grammar of the state. … Miller’s hatred of dissent is most fully revealed in his relentless effort to seize control of public culture, not as a secondary battlefield but as the central terrain on which authoritarian power is forged and sustained. He operates with the clear understanding that domination requires more than repression, it demands the production of compliant fascist subjects and the systematic erosion of the cultural institutions capable of nurturing critique. [Read More]
Want to Stop ICE? Go After Its Corporate Collaborators.
By Eric Blanc, Wes McEnany, and Claire Sandberg
---- Renee Nicole Good’s murder by an ICE agent in Minneapolis has left millions of Americans wondering how we can stop ICE from terrorizing our communities any further. There are many well-known ICE-fighting tactics that we can and should use, like protests, know-your-rights trainings, and neighborhood watches. But two recent victories show a promising, relatively underutilized path forward—one that deserves to be pursued further: We can target businesses that work with ICE. Breaking companies from ICE is a winnable struggle that can put serious pressure on the administration by raising the political cost of mass deportations and damaging ICE’s ability to function. No administration can survive long without the consent of corporate America. Obviously, the stakes are highest for our undocumented friends and family members. But this fight impacts all of us. To stop Trump’s authoritarian oligarchy, we need millions of people—well beyond our normal circles of activists—to join the fight. [Read More]
OUR HISTORY
A Good Neighbor [The films of Marcel Ophuls]
By Aaron Labaree, Boston Review [Fall 2025]
---- For five decades, Ophuls, who died in May, made documentaries exploring the twentieth century’s great crimes and the trail of guilt they left behind. He is mostly known for The Sorrow and the Pity (1969), a daring study of France under German occupation in World War II, which in this country has taken on the status of a worthy classic like Citizen Kane: admired but not much watched. His other films are in danger of being forgotten in the United States, but the occasion of his death is a good reason to change that. They still live, both because the moral questions he poses are timeless and because his skill as a filmmaker allows him to conduct these investigations with great verve. And since they address the sources of political evil, and the compromises individuals allow themselves to make when their government does wrong, watching them today can’t help but generate a shudder of recognition. [Read More]
