Author: North Coast BBQ

Submitted By: pattyrinehart@nehalemtel.net – Click to email about this post

Rainy Day Protest: Community Spirit Shines

Saturday brought exceptionally wet conditions for the North County Resistance. Despite the relentless rain, a dedicated group of 35 participants gathered, undeterred by the weather. Their enthusiasm and positive outlook were evident, as everyone supported one another and maintained high spirits throughout the event.

When asked to sum up the day using words beginning with the letter “W,” the responses were: WILD, WET, WINDY, WISHFUL, WILDFUL, WONDERFUL, WORRISOME, WELCOMING, WE’RE WINNING, WHOLESOME, WEEPING, and several others that were lost in the soggy conditions. The spirit of the group was clearly upbeat, with many regular attendees and at least five newcomers joining us. Thank you to everyone for showing up and persevering through the wind and rain!

Interestingly, no one used the word WACKY—which means extremely irrational or impractical, screwy, or erratic. To conclude, there’s also “weasel,” referring to a sneaky, treacherous person.

North County Resistance invites you and your Valentine to join us for our next peaceful protest on Saturday, February 14th in Nehalem, from noon to 2 PM. For everyone’s safety, we ask protesters to remain on the left side of Highway 101 in the large public parking lot, which will serve as our designated safety zone. Please ensure that access to the businesses across Highway 101 from this lot is not blocked. Thank you for your cooperation.

Again, mentioning our two organizations for food resources, Nehalem Bay Community Services, which open Monday, Friday, and Saturday (10AM-2PM), and Wednesday (1 PM-5PM). A phone number for them would be 503-368-4385.Mailing address is NBCS, PO Box 232, Nehalem, Oregon 97131. The North County Food Bank in Wheeler is open on Tuesday. Their phone number is 503-368-7724 and the mailing address is NCFB, PO Box 162, Wheeler, Oregon 97147.
Thanks for Protesting and thanks for providing food.
Patty

lyricsondemand.com/folk_music/america_the_beautiful/video

Submitted By: rkinor@gmail.com – Click to email about this post

The City Manager did not provide any updates on the Classic Street project at the February Council meeting and the Council had no questions on the project’s progress.

City officials seem reluctant to discuss anything that they believe may reflect negatively on their job performance. Consider the following: 1) ln December, the City Manager stated that project infrastructure should be completed by the end of the month or shortly thereafter. No updates on why that forecast has proven to not be even remotely accurate. 2) Given that approximately $75,000 has been expended to date in legal fees to defend the decision to enter into the second round of bidding after the initial low project bid was rejected, an update to explain the project will now be over budget and additional cost cutting measures will need to be taken would seem appropriate. 3) The City Manager in May explained that she rejected the low bid for the project due to cost. She then stated in a recent Headlight Herald interview that her reason was due to cost AND document discrepancies. When I asked Councilor Hart for an explanation of these “discrepancies” that the City Manager is now publicly referring to and should citizens expect there to be additional new reasons disclosed by the City for why the initial bids were rejected, I was told that the matter could not be discussed.

City officials offering cryptic public explanations of their actions, spending exorbitant amounts of money on legal fees and then telling us they cannot talk about it sounds reminiscent of how the situation with Mayor Simmons was handled.

Twice in recent months upon a review of the monthly Bills For Approval in the Council packet, I have pointed out to Councilor Hart that billings for the Classic Street project were placed in the wrong Fund. This inattention in performing routine oversight in important administrative responsibilities related to Classic Street was also apparent when no discussion or questions were raised during any previous Council meetings as to why the low project bid was rejected, why $475,000 of engineering and legal advice was ignored, why not a single dollar of available TLT revenue was not added to the project budget to give the community the safest and most structurally robust project possible. Taken together, these situations would suggest that the Council lacks either the interest or understanding to administer this project and will unanimously approve whatever is placed before them by the City Manager or claim that the Council has no role in decisions being made on the project.

One could conclude that Councilors are privately receiving project updates and prefer not to reveal what they know in a public meeting. An alternative explanation is that the City Manager is not sharing these details with the Council. Neither option is a characteristic of open and transparent governance.

Randy Kugler

Submitted By: capekiwanda@protonmail.com – Click to email about this post

Greetings Fred. This is my response to your email.  I’ll elaborate for you in terms of things you brought up that astonished you. There are others in our community that don’t support identity politics and see the level of manipulation that is fueled by the media, and our elected officials=in both parties to divide us and do what we are seeing today in places around the country. Who is the real enemy and why are they trying to destroy the fabric of society? 
First, the term “conspiracy theory” was first coined by the CIA after JFK was assassinated to silence dissent and to stop questioning official government narratives. When anyone disagrees with someone, or evidence counter to what they currently believe,  they immediately claim they are engaged in conspiracies. During COVID, they were claiming that those of us who refused to wear toxic masks that are ineffective to prevent the spread of a virus and impact our health, or get experimental mRNA shots were conspiracy theorists and dangerous to public safety. Children were told they could kill grandma. People in mental health were getting involved much like they did in the former Soviet Union when dissidents were sent to mental institutions or to reeducation camps and the Gulags.  Many were promoting putting people speaking out into internment camps and separated from their family. 
When my husband helped emigres who came to the US from Russia, they were amazed at how effective our state sponsored propaganda is. They said although Russians lived in a totalitarian country before the collapse of the Soviet Union, they knew they were slaves to the state, and where to find the truth. Americans believe the propaganda, and embrace their slavery because they think they are free. I heard that from several relatives from Mainland China. 
Governor Brown even told people to report people to law enforcement with more than 6-8 people at a gathering, or report people not wearing masks. Tactics used by the Nazi’s and during the time of Stalin.  Several people I know were cited with criminal trespassing for refusing to wear a mask. One friend who was a 55 year old woman in Eugene was thrown to the ground, injured while being handcuffed and hauled to jail. She tried to stand up for her Constitutional Rights and had them on her. MANDATES are not laws. We saw mask Nazi’s and people demanding that people were not allowed in their businesses without a vaccine passport. I saw people I knew who were holistic organic people jump on the bandwagon because of virtue signaling and to be part of the “group” of people that cared about their fellow human beings. It was the perfect social experiment to see how many people would comply, and comply they did. Let me tell you that my husband and I take a lot of time to research issues and people rather than embrace the mainstream talking points or narratives by either side. What I mean by manufactured outrage is that unless the media is fueling the fires people don’t speak out. Remember when Mothers Against Drunk Drivers was organized it put this issue in the public purview. This is what our mainstream media, and even our alternative media count on whether it’s our liberal or conservative media It’s the false left/right dialectic. We do not subscribe to identity politics and haven’t for many years. We see how we are being manipulated, and that is what I mean by manufactured. Manufactured outrage, and the same as manufactured consent driven by the media for social conditioning and social engineering. Look up the Delphi technique which was created by the Rand Corporation, or the Hegelian Dialectic=Problem, Reaction, Solution. 
Until October 7th, the media was not talking about Israel, Gaza or the Palestinians, and then suddenly there was manufactured outrage on the part of the left. Suddenly now this concern was being manufactured. Where is the media coverage after President Assad was removed and the bloodbath against anyone who supported him and against Christians there now? The media is now silent. Nothing about the role of Israel.  We have family there. I have friends and family in the Middle East, and my concern has never wavered regarding the Palestinian issue, or what was going on in Syria/Lebanon. I’ve been speaking out for years to our Oregon Congressional leaders and participating in protests.  About our war agenda, as well as what has been going on in the Ukraine-another color revolution. Manufactured outrage with a lot of disinformation like our weapons of mass destruction that sent us into Iraq. About 9/11 which we spent over 12 years looking into. 
As far as COVID my friend, I spent a long time listening to as many immunologists, virologists,  epidemiologists, infectious disease specialists, doctors, researchers, etc to understand different sides from around the world. I looked at the scientific studies on masks. I was corresponding with several doctors in my family=one who is on a medical board and a 30 year surgeon who refused to get this shot and was fired and then rehired because they didn’t have enough experienced surgeons, and one who is a longtime forensic pathologist and senior coroner in a large metro city. They were told to stop doing autopsies on patients who had been suspected of dying after they got the COVID shot, or sharing information with fellow pathologists which they had been doing. We shared information. Embalmers started speaking out about what they saw when they prepared the body of people who died after they got those COVID shots.  We talked about masks-the various ones and the studies that have been done. Neither got those COVID shots because they shared the same concerns that many in all scientific fields that were speaking out early on. 
I’ve looked at the current scientific studies on the effects of locking down the country, about the effects of these experimental COVID shots that health authorities still  promote=including Trump and his Operation Warp Speed. He too is in league with the drug companies. As far as Ivermectin my friend, the FDA did a real number on that one claiming it was horse paste. They had a picture of a horse on their website=propaganda at its finest because they have unsavory ties to drug companies.  Drugs have always been repurposed and doctors found that it was helping to treat their patients along with other things. People were getting well who had comorbidities and cancer. 
 Dr. Fauci was promoting Remdesivir that causes kidney damage at 3,000 a pop. I had a senior relative who almost died after she was given it at Salem Hospital and went to a naturopath to heal her kidneys. You can look up the devastating side effects from this drug. Several doctors took the FDA to court and proved that they lied to the public about Ivermectin which they were prescribing to their patients. You can look at the transcripts which I did=primary documents, not media propaganda. 
Both of the medical doctors in my family were taking Ivermectin prophylactically and never got sick.  My relative, who is a surgeon, told me at the hospital he worked at, a pregnant woman came to the ER and she was turned away twice with no care provided. The third time she came, she went directly onto a ventilator, and fortunately for her came off of it. Many never did. I can only hope damage wasn’t done to her unborn child. 
Only certain doctors actually took their oath to do no harm seriously by helping their patients so they could get well. People who had comorbidities that were vulnerable, autoimmune issues, or cancer never were hospitalized. They got well because of early treatment. I personally deal with my health holistically, but there were a lot of things they were doing that helped their vulnerable patients recover including using Ivermectin. An organic healthy diet, regular exercise, fresh air to get vitamin D, zinc, Liposomal Vitamin C, and there are many other herbal remedies, supplements that can help to strengthen your immune system to stay healthy or lessen the time and severity of illnesses. Information was coming out of China, Europe, Asia and the US of things doctors were doing to help their patients recover-including natural treatments. 
No money in a drug like Ivermectin that is pennies on the dollar. The patent on Ivermectin by Merck had expired and why they were working on another drug then. There was no information about how people could strengthen their immune systems to stay healthy or lessen the symptoms and recovery time. The flu completely disappeared. Everything was labeled COVID. People who were in car accidents were now labeled as dying from COVID. Anyone who died, died from COVID and some doctors started speaking out about the changes on death certificates.  Many of us followed the CDC website-VAERS. Again, everything was labeled COVID and hospitals got more money for every COVID case so there was a monetary incentive. 
Then we have  the PCR test which was not accurate and after talking to a friend in Norway who is a Professor of Virology for 30 years, said it never should have been used as a diagnostic tool. They were also amplifying it to 45 where it can show anything. So many false positives. Even Dr. Fauci said it was too high, and should have been much lower. Kary Mullis, the chemist who created the test and won a Nobel Prize said it was not to be used the way it was. The leader of Tanzania who had a PHD in Chemistry conducted an experiment. They sent non=human samples and they all came back positive. He was acutely aware of how people in Africa are used as guinea pigs to test out their new drugs. 
As far as the evidence for the J6 trials, defense attorneys were prevented from showing evidence to the jury pool because the trials were rigged just as they did during the days of Stalin. I would encourage you to step outside of the mainstream media propaganda that is on both sides of the political divide. All this is leading to the furthering of the AI surveillance police state. Problem, Reaction, Solution. The Hegelian Dialectic and the false left/right dialectic keep people at each other’s throats and fighting while significant changes happen while people are kept distracted. The age of technocracy and transhumanism promoted by the World Economic Forum=world elites who claim to know what is best for humanity. 
Anarchists and violent protestors are giving Trump and his ilk a reason to declare martial law and lock down this country. To justify the next phase of the police state. That’s how it starts. My question is who is funding these agent provocateurs who are engaging in violence, and threatening people’s lives to start a civil war? I also would not want to be an ICE agent or someone in law enforcement given the direction we are heading. There are bad cops, and good cops, but unfortunately they are all being lumped together. I look at these events from the perspective of someone on a jury=looking at the evidence rather than just reacting which is what they count on. 

Submitted By: dwieb1@gmail.com – Click to email about this post

Have a sense that social media is harmful to us, our society and country? But not sure how? A recent episode of The Open Mind on OPB caught my attention.
– Dave

www.pbs.org/video/social-media-as-insidious-and-predatory-manipulation-upyjcu/

Maria Ressa, a Nobel Prize winning author, journalist, and news media executive has been sounding the alarm about what investigations have found about how and why global subversive organizations use social media, and the predatory nature of big tech and its effect on politics. Here is some of what she said:

“The big question, I think, is how you address the institutionalized corruption that is these social media platforms.

The first is that I’ve been dealing with it for over a decade. In 2016, I was getting an average of 90, nine zero, hate messages per hour. But the second thing I realized is that it is both a blessing and a curse, because the attacks are, you know, it is meant to change the way you feel. It’s, free speech used to pound you to silence when you’re targeted. The way we were, the way I was.

And then I thought, oh my gosh, wait. If you’re targeted with 90 hate messages per hour, I’m going to take them all. I’m going to get the data. I don’t have to ask anyone for the data, any company, it’s all coming my way. And that allowed us to analyze it to understand how it works.

We took apart clusters of messaging with the distribution networks that put out these messages. I used to travel for CNN, my beat was counterterrorism, right, to look at terrorist networks. And I began to look at these virtual world networks like terrorist networks and their recidivist networks. These [social media] companies know them. But the more they work, the more money they make.

And then it became in the Philippines and now in many other countries around the world, including in the United States. Then it became state sponsored or state enabled. When your President, when President Duterte in the Philippines was the one attacking me, the government apparatus worked hand-in-hand with the recidivist networks of disinformation. And that’s how you began to spread fear.

Social media at that point, hacked our biology. It changes the way we feel about the world, changes the way we see the world, the way we act, the way we vote.

That’s our public information ecosystem. It’s massively corrupted. It’s insidious manipulation. And I’d say the same thing that’s happening in the physical world that’s causing all the wars. Impunity is the exact same tactics used in the virtual world by the CEOs of these tech companies.

But the way I describe big tech today, because it is the least regulated industry globally, right, is predatory. It’s predatory and extractive and it takes our data. It takes our humanity and runs it through a machine to be able to insidiously manipulate us for profit.”

…..

“What should happen is legislation should protect the public the same way that like, you know, it’s a public safety issue. And what the tech lobby has done very well is to present it as a free speech issue.

It’s a safety issue, right? The same way that this building will not fall down around us because they had codes in place. They had the law in place. We don’t have any of that in the virtual world.

Everything in the physical world is going to be, is moving to the virtual world. And yet that virtual world is in the hands of private companies running for profit, running the virtual world for profit. That’s the corruption of our public information ecosystem.

And actually, it’s not just big tech that gave up on public safety for profit. It’s also democratic governments, starting with the United States, that enabled Silicon Valley. I had hoped after January 2021 that after Silicon Valley since came home to roost on Capitol Hill, that America would have learned.

But no, you know, governments, democratic governments abdicated responsibility by not building a public interest tech stack. A tech stack in the virtual world that allows real people to talk to real people without insidiously manipulating us. It’s the same way that, you know, broadcasters in the past, we were independent from government, but there were laws in place that if we, for example, lied repeatedly we would be held accountable for it. None of that is happening in the virtual world.”

Submitted By: barbaraandchuck@nehalemtel.net – Click to email about this post

I talk to animals.
I smile at clouds.
I listen to raindrops
as they hit the pavement.

I guess how old trees are.
I believe in gratitude.
I save ladybugs
from certain death.

And I look for
things in nature
that remind me
of myself.

Like a flower
breaking through
where it wasn’t
supposed to grow.

by ullie-kaye

music and love in Minnesota

Drew Dietle — at Orchestra Hall (Minneapolis). ·

From the Minneapolis Singing Resistance Organizers:
“The focus of this action will to ENCOURAGE DEFECTIONS by ICE agents. After gathering indoors to rehearse, we will walk through downtown Minneapolis, visiting hotels where ICE agents are known to be staying. We will use the power of song to encourage agents to quit their jobs and walk away from the violence. We will embody a deep spirit of nonviolence and love Encouraging defections is a time-honored tactic by civil resistance movements around the world.

We will embody our commitment to nonviolence and love, singing outside the windows of ICE agents, encouraging them to put down their guns and come back over to the side of humanity and love.

About defections Encouraging defections is a tactic that has been used by civil resistance movements throughout history to erode the power of oppressive regimes. While it is unlikely that individual agents will defect on the spot on Sunday, our goal is to popularize this call in order to expand the possibility of defections happening at critical moments in the future.

The spirit of this action will be to call our lost siblings home. We will operate from a deep spirit of love and belief in the possibility of transformation. We are feeling many things in this time, including outrage, horror, and terror at the actions of ICE agents. We are fully justified in those reactions, and we believe that accountability for harms done is an essential part of transformation. Holding all of that to be true, the message we will convey on Sunday is that if federal agents are willing to step away from their roles and leave their violence behind, we will welcome them back into beloved community. We believe this message is essential to spread throughout the country, in order to undermine the administration’s legitimacy.“

www.facebook.com/reel/1230437539054746/?s=single_unit&__cft__[0]=AZYduu5glR_9UDBnFdOVZvxzpP7537eOaYmIS7z7IRul7F3Xpiml3KtFYI-HnusjjrxkCCh0VxasBjS2JFpZ103XK0W_HP8KgL_675mIfOsZxnEtLfaGgGHL1xGM3FAgxyx6ro91x5PR-da-f-38qipQb57CMy5etV65oC23q_z-txVRLM168o7HAlO9LEgiEPo&__tn__=H-R

Submitted By: mkuestner10@gmail.com – Click to email about this post

Give local communities more control over Short Term Rental Taxes.
Give written testimony now: Support Oregon State House Bill 4148
Currently 70% of STR taxes have to be used to promote tourism, leaving only 30% for local communities to pay their bills for roads, schools, fire and police protection.
HB 4148 would change the percentage from STR taxes in favor of more local control, reversing the percentages to favor local control: 60% local communities, 40% to promote tourism.
Coastal communities need flexibility to direct local $’s from Transient Lodging Taxes (STRs) where they are most needed.
Speak up now! HB 4148 hearing is Monday, Feb. 9.
You can testify in writing before Monday:
olis.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/2026R1/Testimony/HREV/HB/4148/0000-00-00-00-00?area=Measures

Submitted By: barbaraandchuck@nehalemtel.net – Click to email about this post

The theme this year’s Tillamook County Giving Guide is “Sowing Seeds of Love”.

Please check it out and give generously–sowing your own seeds of love.

The Giving Guide and detailed directories of the organizations can be found at www.northcoastbbq.com/local-resources/

The Giving Guide can also be found here:
www.northcoastbbq.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Giving-Guide-2025-26_Final_Spreads3.pdf

Not every organization can afford a paid profile, which pays for the production. So there is a list of contact information for all in the back of the Guide.

Here are descriptions of several of those organizations:
Fulcrum Community Resources
Garibaldi Cultural Heritage Initiative/Coast Guard Boathouse
Garibaldi Lions Club
Garibaldi Museum

Fulcrum Community Resources
PO Box 136
Nehalem, OR 97131
503-368-6874
info@fulcrumresources.org
www.fulcrumresources.org

Barbara McLaughlin, President
barbaraandchuck@nehalemtel.net
503-368-6874

Mission Statement: Fostering the transition of the Nehalem Bay community to a sustainable future.

One paragraph about your organization’s history/work:
Our volunteer group initiates and coordinates local programs in north Tillamook County on the north Oregon Coast. We also sponsor others’ projects that fit with our mission and goals. We see Fulcrum, not as a hub, but as an enabling node – one of many groups locally who are organizing and creating projects. Our guiding philosophy is that the most effective and innovative projects are initiated at the grassroots community level.

Garibaldi Cultural Heritage Initiative/Coast Guard Boathouse
PO Box 671
1209 Bay Lane
Garibaldi, OR 97118
savegaribaldipier@gmail.com
www.savegaribaldipier.org

Clair Thomas, President
Mike Arseneault mikes.arseneault@gmail.com
Kristen Penner kristenann@gmail.com

Mission Statement: To preserve, restore and meaningfully use Garibaldi’s Historic United States Coast Guard Boathouse, creating an inclusive community gathering place that enhances the Tillamook Coast’s economic strength, and to generate both educational and recreational opportunities for public-private partnerships to thrive.

One paragraph about your organization’s history/work:
Built in 1936, the Boathouse building and pier indicate a rare type of maritime architecture that tells the story of a pivotal chapter in Oregon’s history. The combination of location, historical integrity of the building, and scenic value elevate the heritage, cultural, and visitor value as well as the need for a long-term plan to repurpose and preserve this unique asset for our community. A staggering testimony to the enduring spirit of the Tillamook Coast pioneers, the Garibaldi Historic US Coast Guard Boathouse represents an opportunity for our current culture to embrace the legacy of our past and preserve this site for generations to come.

Garibaldi Lions Club
shehawks@hotmail.com
karnasmoon@yahoo.com

Garibaldi Museum
PO Box 5
112 Garibaldi Ave
Garibaldi, OR 97118
503-322-8411
info@GaribaldiMuseum.org
www.garibaldimuseum.org

Duncan Maher, Executive Director info@GaribaldiMuseum.org

Mission Statement:
• Enhance the maritime heritage of the Pacific Northwest by focusing on Captain Robert Gray and the historic vessels, the Lady Washington and Columbia Redivivia;
• Encourage studies in the construction, sailing, navigation and other related maritime and oceanic activities;
• Recognize the literature, art, music and dance related to the age of sailing;
• Provide services to communities throughout the Pacific Northwest geographical region through community educational programs for all ages, in order to develop knowledge and understanding of the cultural and historical aspects of shipbuilding, sailing, navigation and other related activities.

One paragraph about your organization’s history/work:
Open Thursday through Monday, 10AM – 4PM. Last Entry at 3:30PM. Celebrating our 20th Anniversary in July, 2024!

Submitted By: website@unitedpaws.org – Click to email about this post

Meet Claire, Obie & Piccolo, United Paws’ Kittens of the Week. These unusual sisters are a must see for anyone who wants a “purr-fect” kitten. Claire is all black with a short but straight tail; Oboe is a black and white tuxedo with a stubby and crooked tail, and Piccolo is all black with a stubby and crooked tail. Each one is cuter than the next and after being sadly abandoned, they are happy, healthy, and ready to find their forever homes.

Full of playfulness and purrs, these kittens adore attention and love to be held. On their own, they love to chase each other and go after any sort of toy. They love to climb towers, hide from each other in boxes, and explore their surroundings. They are the perfect age where everything around them is something new to discover and play with. Strings, balls of paper, wand toys, or springs will entertain them for hours. When they are tuckered out from playing, they can often be found sleeping together in a big kitten pile.

Claire, Oboe, and Piccolo are very good eaters and they always use their litter box. Their perfect home would be one where they will get lots of attention and play time. In exchange, these kittens will bring sweetness and love to their new family, plus loads of entertainment to match.

To see more photos and videos of these cuties, please visit unitedpaws.org, or schedule a Meet & Greet by emailing unitedpawshelp@gmail.com.

Submitted By: codger817@gmail.com – Click to email about this post

The following is a column from the Minnesota Star Tribune- I subscribe because I believe in journalism and I think what the newspaper in Minneapolis is printing is the TRUTH. Discussion is welcome at codger817@gmail.com (Jim Heffernan)

We are watching The Great Wrecking of Minnesota.

The state for so long resisted the embrace of corrosive falsehoods that swept over other states or groups. We weren’t like Florida, where school vaccinations are being phased out amid a national rise in measles. We weren’t like North Carolina, where a battle between its legislative and judicial branches over redistricting wound up in the Supreme Court.
But then the drums began to beat louder about fraud against government programs in Minnesota last summer. Minnesota’s leaders and the feckless Trump administration have since torn the state apart by exaggerating and overreacting to the problem.

First came the late October decision by state officials to impose a 90-day hold on payments to nearly all providers of Medicaid-backed services when only a small number were responsible for fraud.

They threw thousands of caregiving businesses — serving more than 1 million Minnesotans — into economic calamity and brought the state to the brink of a more expensive humanitarian crisis than fraudsters ever caused, even if you believe they have taken billions of dollars. Some caregivers closed, including one assisting 450 disabled Minnesotans in 32 northern counties.
The next month came the smearing of Somali-run child care centers by a right-wing huckster on YouTube, leading the Trump administration to seize upon suspicions of fraud as a pretext for its largest clampdown on immigrants. It sent 3,000 federal agents to stage raids and arrests in a state with a below-average population of undocumented immigrants in both percentage and absolute terms.
By their own count, those agents arrested more than 10 times as many noncriminal undocumented immigrants than criminal ones. They turned a federal office building into a crowded, inhumane detention center. Tragically, they killed two Minnesotans trying to witness or protest their work.
Along the way, they struck fear in Minnesotans of color, even nonimmigrants. Many have hunkered down at home, creating another major economic problem as employees and customers fear going out in public.

What has this all been for? An edge in the 2026 elections? To halt the nation’s reliance on immigrants? To shift attention away from bureaucratic mistakes or the Epstein files?
The answer is all of the above. And most disturbing of all, none of those reasons justify the costs.
Those start with the lives of Renee Good and Alex Pretti and extend to harms being felt by disabled Minnesotans, businesses, the state’s reputation and the actual solving of problems.
The folly and futility of this moment crystallized for me during six hours of testimony before two Minnesota Senate committees on Jan. 29, the day Trump border czar Tom Homan conducted his first news conference after taking over the crackdown on immigrants.
Homan did what so many leaders have done the last four months: He ignored the big picture and burrowed in on one tension point. For him, it was the level at which Minnesota jailers respond to so-called “detainer” requests by federal agents for undocumented immigrants caught in a crime.
If that were really the issue, federal agents and local officials could have resolved it without sending thousands of heavily armed masked men and women to raid Minnesotans’ homes, business and schools.

Later on Jan. 29, a Republican state senator at a hearing on the effects of Operation Metro Surge asked two suburban mayors, who had told stories about random ICE arrests of their citizens, whether they believed federal agents had a right to arrest undocumented criminals in the Hennepin County jail.
Again, here was a person in power zeroing in on the detainer issue, ignoring more important matters of violence, race and politics. In response, Sen. Alice Mann, DFL-Edina, chided people playing the game of “What about this?”
“I very respectfully ask that people stop playing the ‘both sides’ card,” Mann said. “Because when you do that without pointing to where the violence is coming from, you are squarely on the side of the oppressor and that is a bad, bad look.”
A short time later, in another conference room, came more emotional testimony from disabled Minnesotans and caregivers about the effects of the funding restrictions born out of the scramble to halt fraud. “It’s clear there’s been a lot of collateral damage,” Sen. Jim Abeler, R-Anoka, said at the hearing.
It’s also clear The Great Wrecking of Minnesota is not over.

The hyping of fraud allegations led many Trump officials to cut, or threaten, federal funds to Minnesota — far beyond the Medicaid programs where the problems are centered.
Even more absurdly, federal prosecutors in Minneapolis pursuing fraud wound up quitting after being told to instead investigate people hassling ICE and the Border Patrol.
In other words, the people who were fighting fraud in human services programs here have stopped because of the immigration crackdown.
The longer-term problem will be immigrants, legal and undocumented, leaving Minnesota — or never coming to it.
Population data for 2025 already shows the flow of immigrants to Minnesota fell by two-thirds from the year before. ICE leader Marcos Charles boasted on Jan. 23 the agency has arrested 10,000 undocumented immigrants in Minnesota in the first year of Donald Trump’s second term. If y ou believe the number, that’s more people than all but 80 or so of Minnesota’s 853 communities.

Dimensions of The Great Wrecking of Minnesota are unjust and immoral, but I concentrate on unforgiving economic realities. Downward pressure on Minnesota’s population is one.
I now fear most for towns where the economic engine is a food-processing company relying heavily on immigrant workers. The Great Wrecking of Minnesota may wipe out one or more of those businesses.

It could be a beef plant in Long Prairie or Buffalo Lake, a turkey plant in Willmar or Pelican Rapids, a vegetable plant in Le Sueur or Owatonna or even one of the huge pork plants in Austin or Worthington. It could be more than one of them.
In their distortions and misjudgments about fraud and immigration, people who should know better forgot how many Minnesota communities survive today because immigrants, including those who are undocumented and trying to become citizens, do difficult or dirty work other people won’t.