Does anyone in Colorado or the United States feel like life is anywhere near normal anymore? Our aberration is not from a pandemic. It’s from our government. It’s at war with us, the people.
Let’s take Renée Good’s tragic fate. She dropped off her son at school. She stopped where ICE agents were standing on a Minneapolis residential street. An ICE agent demanded she move her car. Another agent yelled at her to get out of her car. Her last words were, “I’m not mad at you,” and she smiled an open, goofy smile at the agents. She edged her car back, and she then turned right to move forward, apparently trying to get out of the way.
An ICE agent close to the front of the car where he should not have been positioned shot her three times through the windshield and her open window. She couldn’t see the face of the man who shot her with a gun inches away. He wore a mask. The last words she may have heard were from that ICE agent. These were the words: “F…. B….” Her car moved off and slammed into a parked car. It looked like the final shots in the movie “China Town.”
That’s about as horrible as any ending to a life can be.
Within a couple of hours, the Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, in a large cowboy hat and other western accoutrements, named Good a “domestic terrorist.” In contrast to Noem who shot her dog, the mother of three won poetry awards. Good’s husband, a military veteran, died, leaving her a young widow. Everyone who knew her says she was kind. The Department of Homeland Security Secretary had a knee-jerk reaction to Good’s death and has not retracted her statements.
People in Minneapolis and other cities are protesting at the heartbreak of Renée Good’s loss to her children and family. They are protesting the arrest of thousands of individuals by ICE and other federal authorities. Many arrested people have children and other family members who rely on them. The federal agents continue to wear masks, carry weapons, aggressively approach individuals, shoot tear gas and physically rough people up. These hostile law enforcement behaviors used to be rare. Now they are commonplace and supported by our president and his delegates.
Wasn’t there a time when a place like Greenland could just go about its business and not worry about a monster coming its way? Greenland is not a “narco-terrorist” country. The people there haven’t attacked anyone or caused trouble. But President Donald Trump wants Greenland. He will either buy it or take it he says. Since when was the United States into the country-buying business? Not since the 19th century.
President Donald Trump listens to a question during a news conference at Mar-a-Lago, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026, in Palm Beach, Fla., as Secretary of State Marco Rubio watches. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Greenland is protected by Denmark, a member of NATO. Denmark has never done anything harmful to the United States. In general, it minds its own business as one of the happiest countries on earth. None of this has any swag with our president. Greenland has minerals and its melting icebergs make the Arctic passage possible. In Trump’s real estate owner’s mind, possessing Greenland is more important than the freedom of 56,000 Greenlanders whose ancestors have lived on the island for millennia.
Trump is throwing his hefty weight around all over the world. He has bombed Syria and Iran. He bombed Nigeria, ostensibly to stop persecution of Christians, but probably to access Nigerian oil.
Trump also wants Venezuela’s oil. The US Navy has boarded tankers to move their oil to the United States. Will Venezuelans benefit from the sale of oil Trump has appropriated? Is there any agreement to protect the rights of Venezuelans to their oil-and-gas production?
Trump wants U.S. oil companies to invest in the Venezuelan oil-and-gas industry. Why would they do that? Do they want the price of oil to go down more than it already has? What’s in it for Chevron and other oil-and-gas energy companies to put multiple billions into drilling for Venezuelan oil when renewable energy hangs over the industry?
Trump will soon move on Cuba. Since the 1950s, Cuba has played cat and mouse with the U.S., and Trump will finally end that game. That island can do no harm to this nation since the U.S. Bay of Pigs Invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Trump wants Cuba so he can put sticks in the eyes of non-Robert-Kennedy-Jr. Kennedys, as he did with his renaming of the Kennedy Center.
Iran and the entire Middle East are in Trump’s sights. Oil and gas control is the reason. Trump is all in with Israel to topple the current Iranian regime. The Ayatollah and his cohorts are theological dictators. Iran is another country at war with its people. But the last time we overthrew an Iranian regime and coronated the Peacock Prince as Shah we ended up with chaos 20 years later. Would there be a different outcome for the United States if we install the current Peacock Prince as Shah of Iran?
Our country is careening off the rails. What can we do?
Paula Noonan owns Colorado Capitol Watch, the state’s premier legislature tracking platform.