News & Articles

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 and you

The environment and energy provisions of the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 hold great promise to boost U.S. energy security, lower consumer electricity costs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. While past debate has centered on whether climate change is real, continuing extreme climate trends have rendered denialism increasingly irrelevant. Most people now realize that it is time to do something about climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions, including those from burning fossil fuels. Whatever your current view, it seems that saving money would be reason enough to take advantage of this law’s programs. It offers consumers financial incentives via tax credits and direct rebates to improve home and vehicle efficiency.  Examples include tax credits related to the purchase of new or used electric vehicles, solar or wind electricity production, efficient heating/cooling systems and appliances, improved house energy efficiency, and more. 

For some lower income households, tax credits may not be as beneficial, so the law includes direct rebates for many home energy efficient products or improvements. Of course, the longer lasting result of improving your energy efficiency is saving money by reducing energy costs. Many of the details of how to take advantage of this law are still coming out. Stay tuned to find out how these various financial incentives can help you save money, and protect our planet.

John Lindell
Bayfield, Wisconsin

Trump must be held accountable for crime of the century

Some people think Donald Trump should be held above the law out of fear for what his armed supporters might do if law and order catches up with him. But violence or the threat of violence for political gain is the very definition of terrorism. Acting on that fear instead of acting according to the law would be surrendering to terrorists. The keyboard commandos of the far-right threatened civil war when Mar-A-Lago was searched, but, probably because they saw their brethren facing prison sentences for the assault on the Capitol on Jan 6, 2021, only one douchebag actually attacked law enforcement. Adolf Hitler got a slap on the wrist for his first, failed coup attempt, and that didn’t turn out well.  If Trump does not face legal consequences for the crime of the century – his attempted overthrow of our democracy – our constitutional republic does not have long to live. 

David A Sorensen
Duluth, Minnesota

It continues
 
Where do I start? The recent raid on Trump’s Mar-a-lago home was another example of the FBI being politicized. I just saw an interview of a former FBI agent, Mr. Kaplan, who said the raid was disgusting and over reach. He stated that there were 2-3 steps which could have been taken instead of this obvious political motive. He also mentioned that America’s trust of the FBI is the lowest since the 1970’s Watergate incident. Rep. Jim Jordan’s office has received 14 FBI whistleblowers stating just how political things have gotten at the FBI.

 Unfortunately, this list of all of America’s institutions have been destroyed by the radical Democrat party. The other institutions include: CIA, CDC, DOJ, AG, DHS, U.S. Secretary of State, etc. As former FBI agent Kaplan stated, “this is the action one would see in a third world country”!

A new book was recently published by a New York Times best selling author, Dick Morris, about who will be the GOP candidate for the 2024 Presidential election and yes, it will be Trump. And based upon the results of the mid-term elections with many “blue” state Secretary of States being voted out of office in swing states due to election fraud (Georgia, Wisconsin, Arizona, Pennsylvania), Trump will win the 2024 Presidential election. At that point, maybe just maybe all of America’s formally trusted institutions will become non-political and support our U.S. Constitution! I will put money ($1.00/each bet) that Trump will win in 2024 just as I did for the 2020 election!

Chuck Bracken
Cannon Falls, Minnesota

It’s that time again
 
Election time is here once more so we have the usual letters about candidates, which I confess, I too used to write. No more.  

Of course, there are differences. Some are absolutely backward while others, with very few exceptions, are just the lesser of two evils. Such is the nature of managed democracy in the U.S.  
Far more troublesome than any differences is what candidates overwhelmingly agree on or are uncourageously silent about, namely, the militarized propagandized imperial nation state which consumes our resources at home and serves the aggressive geopolitical goals of US elites abroad.  

This past May the mayors of Duluth, St. Paul and Minneapolis, the governor, and the senior U.S. senator – all good liberal/centrist Democrats-– flocked to the Duluth harbor for the commissioning of the $360 million “littoral combat ship,” the USS Minneapolis-Saint Paul, before its departure to defend the Florida coast from (Cuba? China? Russia?) at the very time when they were pontificating about Republicans for cutting the social spending budget. They were right; the social spending is needed. But this Pentagon boondoggle which they were celebrating is not. Its primary purpose is to solidify the power of the military arm of the empire among local politicians and to that end it succeeded marvelously.  

So much for elections and the possibility of addressing the most pressing issue of the day by voting.  

Robert Kosuth  
Duluth, Minnesota  

Greed and power

An article in the August/September issue of Forbes Magazine titled, “Donald Trump’s Great Escape,” recounts how Trump has sold assets for inflated prices and established banking ties, including credit to refinance his near term $900 million debt since leaving office in January of 2021. A shady investment group with secret members, CGI Merchant Group, overpaid for Trump real estate. A little known bank, Axos, has provided credit for refinancing loans. Suddenly Trump has gone from being in a financial hole to being on good financial footing.

On August 8, Trump’s Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, was searched by the FBI under a warrant granted by a federal judge. The warrant was granted because the National Archives had found Top Secret and Secret Compartmented Information (SCI) in boxes of documents Trump had returned to the archives after removing them illegally from the White House. The FBI found still more classified documents at Mar-a-Lago on August 8.

After being subjected to Trump’s behavior for many years, it is clear to many that he is motivated mostly by greed and power. Knowing that, it is not too difficult to opine what Trump was doing with the classified documents he illegally removed from the White House. Likely there was money to be made and tracks to be covered.

Those of us who have been tasked with handling Top Secret and SCI information know that if we were found to have removed such information from a Secret Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) we would be qualified for free government-provided housing in a federal prison for years. Taking classified information from a SCIF endangers our nation and every person in it. That is why the penalty for compromising classified information from a SCIF is substantial.

Donald Trump has broken the law and endangered our nation by storing our nation’s secrets in the basement of his resort in Florida. We can only hope that the Justice Department brings charges quickly and that justice is done in a rapid fashion.

Jason Maloney
Washburn, Wisconsin