I am my neighbor
When people ask me “why do you love your neighbor?” I answer, “because I am my neighbor.”
I am everything putrid, mean, evil, absurd, vile, lie, grotesque and disgusting. Just like my neighbor.
But I am also everything beautiful. Holy, sacred, pure, truth and heavenly just like my neighbor.
I am my neighbor.
Jerry Kressin, Lake Elmo
Congress is working on fraud because … of the fraud
On February 26, Gov. Walz announced a set of initiatives to reduce fraud in Minnesota. Perhaps having been on top of this in year one of his administration would have saved all of us hundreds of millions in loss to fraud. But we can applaud this new initiative all the same.
What is astonishing, however, if that he continues to blame the Trump administration, “calling the Medicaid pause ‘an incredibly damaging continuation of the reckoning and retribution campaign by the Trump administration,’ and ‘totally illegal and unprecedented.’”
We Minnesotans are in this position because of fraud, not because of President Trump. The federal government has a fiduciary obligation to manage our tax dollars. Congress is working on fraud because of the fraud.
Gov. Walz said it before; now he must say it again. This rash of fraud and theft of our tax dollars happened on his watch. Gov. Walz’s motive for aggressively pursuing measures to reduce fraud should be exactly this: “I am the Governor. It is my responsibility and that of the Legislature to fix this.” By pointing at President Trump, you simply make us believe that you would do nothing if not that your inaction has been painfully revealed to us.
Dave Racer, Woodbury
Some are accountable, some aren’t
In response to “Masks for some” (Feb. 26): The writer has tried to make the point that requiring federal agents to be unmasked is somehow unfair. I’ll note that we have all seen a lot of protesters, and few are masked. That aside, recall that all ordinary citizens – many of whom are protesters – are subject to accountability by means of arrest and prosecution, whether they are masked or not. Meanwhile, masked and unidentified federal agents are subject to no such accountability. The public is paying the salaries of these people. There must be a way to assure the public that they are doing their jobs properly and lawfully. Clearly visible identification and identifiability is the only way to ensure accountability.
D.E. Barnard, St. Paul
Shoveling is shoveling. Voting is voting
A letter in the Sunday opinion section suggested if New York City required two types of I.D. to shovel snow, why would needing an I.D. to vote be a problem? The answer is very simple. In order to work one must generally, at a minimum, possess a valid Social Security number, Form W-4 and some type of identity verification. This is so the employees (shovelers) can be taxed on the pay they receive for their services. These taxes include, but are not limited to, federal income, New York state income, Medicare, Social Security and local taxes where applicable. This is not disenfranchising anyone, nor suggesting the same standards should be applied to voting, rather it is following longstanding taxation regulations.
The juxtaposition of snow shoveling and voting is absurd.
Earl Bailey, West St. Paul
Should have been bothered
I note in the Pioneer Press sport section on March 2 that Bill Guerin, general manager of Minnesota Wild, said he was not surprised or bothered about the controversy over the locker room celebration of the USA men’s gold medal hockey win. Well, he should be bothered as he was the one who made the celebration political when he chose to invite FBI leader Kash Patel into the locker room. This celebration should have been solely about the accomplishment of the USA players. Instead the post-celebration conversation created days of discords about Patel’s presence in the locker room, and glory for the players’ accomplishments was lost in the shuffle.
Geri Minton, Roseville
The threat of proliferation
Since the beginning of 2026 there has been a disturbing trend that needs much more attention drawn to it, and that is the growing threat of proliferation of nuclear weapons among nations in the nuclear club. Consider the following over just the past two months of the new year:
In January, North Korea conducted ballistic and hypersonic missile tests.
In February, it was recently discovered, through an analysis of seismic data, (more likely than not) that China conducted a nuclear weapons explosives test in 2020. This despite China’s self-imposed pledge in 1996 not to conduct such tests. China’s test apparently used techniques intended to blunt seismic detection, which would be a violation of the spirit of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. This in turn suggests China is modernizing its nuclear forces.
Also in February, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty between the U.S. and Russia expired. This treaty capped deployed strategic warheads at 1,550 on each side. Some version of the START treaty had been in existence since 1991.
France just declared an intent to increase its nuclear arsenal, something it has not done in 34 years.
The current U.S. administration claims that one of its justifications for attacking Iran is to deprive that nation of being able to create nuclear weapons. Maybe yes, maybe no. However, its overall commitment to reducing the threat of a nuclear exchange between adversaries remains highly suspect as it allows the START treaty to lapse and has no response to China’s likely intent on modernizing and growing its stockpile, or France’s explicit promise to do so.
The U.S. has torn up the Western Alliance it had with Europe for 80 years and has offered nothing to replace it with. As observed in Politico, President Trump’s “America First worldview and contempt for Europe’s political establishment have increasingly relegated NATO’s charter, the 1949 accord forging the globe’s most powerful military alliance, to antique status.” In terms of nuclear diplomacy, this means the U.S. is forfeiting its ways and means for influencing other nuclear states to draw down its stockpiles.
It does not take a specialist in geopolitics (which I am not) to see from these unnerving developments that the world is entering a new and very frightening stage of competitive buildup of nuclear forces. It is incumbent on ordinary people to demonstrate and show our government leaders that this situation is unacceptable and must be curbed as soon as possible.
Phillip J. Trobaugh, St. Paul
All this winning
I have to admit, President Trump is right about one thing. In the State of the Union address, President Trump said there would be so much winning, we would get tired of all the winning. Dead soldiers, another war, stocks tumbling, gas prices rising — so much winning! Yes, I am indeed tired of all this winning.
Gloria Zaiger, St. Paul
Sainted
We all know there are plenty of “Tainted” happenings going on today, so we should share a “Sainted” one when one comes along.
I am 83 years old, use a cane, am in fairly good health, and can still drive – so life is still pretty good for me. This particular story centers around one of my grocery purchasing visits to the Cub Food store located in West St. Paul where I live. I usually visit Cub Foods every couple of weeks, purchasing what I refer to as my usual daily eats.
However, the Cub Food visit which is the subject of this particular “Sainted” letter involves my ever-challenging four- to six-months visit, during which i have to restock my supply of staples – you know, food types that have to be stored for upcoming demands, such as flour, sugar, salt and pepper, cooking ingredients, etc. The challenge of this visit is the amount of food purchases which I have to locate, run through the checkout lane, package up, haul out to my car, load into the trunk, unload the trunk and carry into my home, and finally place everything on the appropriate storage shelving – all while using a cane. Luckily, this process is helped a bit because the store can usually supply someone to push my cart to my car and unload my purchases into the car trunk. But getting to this event involves my “Sainted” story.
After at least an hour of shopping for the staples at Cub Foods, I found myself at the checkout counter worrying about how long I would hold up the rest of the line behind me as I emptied both the top and the bottom of my cart. After all, I had to do this while using my cane for balance as I tried to keep a steady line of staples moving out of my card, past the cashier and to the bagging area. To my utter surprise, as I was in the middle of moving everything down the conveyor belt of the checkout counter, a young lady came up behind me and asked me, “would you like some help in bagging your purchased items?” I quickly said, “Yes, thank you so much for helping me – I seem to be buried in the food on the conveyor belt.”
The young lady was able to keep up with the pace of the cashier and quickly bagged my food the minute I could push it down the belt and to the bagging area. She kept up her pace while I paid for my food, and I ended up with 18 plastic bags of food, which she had also double-bagged for safety. It is my usual practice in any store to make a comment at the customer service counter about some employee going beyond to help me, so I quickly turned and asked the girl her name so I could “give her a pat on the back” for her help.
The young lady turned to me and said “I don’t think it can happen that way.” When i said “why,” she replied, “I don’t work at this store.” I must admit I initially started laughing at that, but by the time I looked up to thank her again, she had disappeared back between the two cashier counters from which she had appeared.
Carol B Slater, West St. Paul
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