John Freivalds New Book  Ramblin' Man is here!!  Click here for more details

 Nazi whistleblower's advice, lessons still ring true  

Polish soldier, resistance-fighter, and diplomat during World War II Jan Karski (left) greets U.S. Gen. Colin Powell at the opening of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1980 in Washington, D.C. / United States Holocaust Memorial Museum photo.

 

By John Freivalds

Published 4/15/2023

Duluth News Tribune

Jan Karski. Who dat? And why care? Karski in 1942 sought to inform the western world about the atrocities being committed by the Nazis against the Jews in Poland. In today’s parlance, he was a whistleblower. His actions came to light in a one-hour PBS special in March, part of its Great Performance series: “The Legacy of Jan Karski.” Imagine, Karski risked life and limb to bring these Nazi horror stories to light, and only 83 years later did he get some real recognition in America.

New 'warning to the West': beware Ukraine fatigue

 

Ukrainian security forces comb through debris shortly after a strike at a residential building in Konstantanivka, Ukraine on Saturday, Jan. 28, 2023. Russian shelling has killed at least eight civilians in towns and villages along the front line.

 

By John Freivalds

Published 1/31/2023

Minneapolis Star Tribune

The NATO defense ministers, including the government I serve, Latvia, have decided to send more weaponry to Ukraine to fight the Russians, including fancy battle tanks. There is total unanimity that the war should continue within the military leadership. They recognized that is the only way to stop President Vladimir Putin. He will not go quietly into the night and go to his villa in Sochi, drink cognac and enjoy his pension.

Local View: Politics, not principles, driving who gets into the US

 

 

From the column: "What amazes me most is the rhetoric used to describe humans who want to come here."

By John Freivalds

Published 1/14/2023.

Duluth News Tribune

Ever wonder when the dehumanizing rhetoric of Latin-Americans migrants began? No, it wasn’t with President Donald Trump. It started in 1965 when a new system of immigration control was introduced. The old system had built-in bias against Catholics and Jews, and the Center of Immigration Studies concluded that “the new system is widely credited with having spiked a shift in the composition of immigration away from Europe (and) toward Latin America.”

 Local View: Call it economics — or just mumbo jumbo about money  

 

From the column: "Today we are surrounded by the confusing lexicon of economics ... (and) are similarly surrounded by professors and politicians who purport to understand it."

 

By John Freivalds

Published 12/12/2022

Duluth News Tribune

Economics is that science that describes, analyzes, and explains how people allocate scarce resources to unlimited wants. That’s what Father Zrinyi, my economics 101 prof at Georgetown University, taught me.

 Is the US going bananas?  

 

By John Freivalds

Published: TBD

Duluth News Tribune

Is the U.S. turning into a banana republic? That’s what column writer Melih Altınok wrote in the Daily Sabah. Many conservatives make the claim, too, even though few of them have lived in a third-world country.