bsmall2Mar 24

> ... the economic strangulation of Cuba, now in its seventh decade, is also taking place in the US through the relentless, bipartisan imposition of austerity economics that keeps slashing away at already gutted social welfare programs, health care, and environmental protections for poor and working-class people. The two policies are, in fact, one and should be resisted as such.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/03/20/roaming-charges-trumps-little-excursion-hits-the-straits/

#USACuba #CubaUSA #AusterityPolicies #JeffreyStClair

Roaming Charges: Trump's Little Excursion Hits the Straits

Perhaps Trump will now replace Joe Kent with Newt Gingrich, who is very, very strong on security. So strong that Newt, the Edward Teller of our tormented times, advised Trump to drop 12 nuclear bombs on Iran to blast out a canal by-passing the Strait of Hormuz. In other words, someone with the guts to start a nuclear holocaust to prevent one.

CounterPunch.org
bsmall2Jan 28

"Poetry is the unacknowledged legislation of the world" --- I.A. Richards

> "Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.." --- Shelley

In Defense of Poetry
(Helped Coleridge... according to Richards...)
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5428/5428-h/5428-h.htm

#PoetLegislators #PoetryLegislation
#PercyShelley #IARichards

"In this case, we must embrace the song if not the singer"
#JeffreyStClair on #BruceSpringstein's
#StreetsOfMinneapolis got me thinking of Shelley and Richards lines, Chomsky's questionable relations with Epstein too...

A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays, by Percy Bysshe Shelley

bsmall2Jan 27
> They blamed him because he was blameless. They defamed him to hide their own guilt. A guilt that runs from that sidewalk in Minneapolis to the offices of Border Patrol to the DHS HQ to the White House. The lies, so outrageous, so transparent, are proof of their culpability.
> Then came the lies... He was a domestic terrorist. He was an assassin.. All lies. Lies told by some of the highest-ranking people in the government.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/01/26/where-the-sidewalk-ends-the-lies-begin-on-the-execution-of-alex-pretti/
#JeffreyStClair #AlexPretti
Where the Sidewalk Ends, the Lies Begin: On the Execution of Alex Pretti

Here’s what I saw after watching multiple videos of the execution of Alexi Pretti: VA nurse Alex Pretti, whom Gregory Bovino said wanted to do “maximum damage,” was trying to protect a woman who was being pepper-sprayed, an act of humanity which enraged the CPB agents who then went after him en masse, pepper-spraying him in the face. He was holding a cellphone in his hand at the time eight agents descended on him and slammed him to the pavement. With six immigration agents on top of him, Alex Pritti could easily have been "Chauvined" to death…if they hadn't decided to shoot him. He had a holstered gun, which  he had a permit (and god-given right, according to Trump and the NRA) to “open carry.” And that gun was taken from him by an agent who walked away, then they shot him multiple times from only inches away, as many as 10 shots in less than five seconds.

CounterPunch.org
Show threadbsmall2Jan 24
@dangillmor
> Remember the guy that ICE knocked down, pinned to the pavement and then pepper-sprayed... he's a photographer.. #JohnAbernathy, who has been covering the streets of the Twin Cities for years, from George Floyd to the ICE protests. His photos are amazing and an intimate record of what's going down. And I really like his motto, especially in the wake of Kristi Noem's plan to try to enforce unconstitutional "free speech" zones: ”Bearing witness without permission.”
https://www.abernathyphoto.com/streets
/HT #JeffreyStClair
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1F2tR5jYkA/
John Abernathy — John Abernathy

Minneapolis street photographer focusing on protests, homeless, hate, and other stories.

John Abernathy
bsmall2Jan 11
> As two of the men advanced... one of them told her to “Move, move, move,” while the other shouted, “Get out of the fucking car.” These contradictory instructions are a frequent tactic, since, however you respond, you violate one of the orders, and offer an excuse for escalation. https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/01/09/roaming-charges-125/
#ReneeGood #ICEThugs
#JeffreyStClair
Roaming Charges: In ICE Cold Blood

Many of the people who have spent the last five years denouncing the killing of Ashli Babbitt for raiding the Capitol in an attempt to overturn an election are celebrating the murder of Renee Nichole Good, a terrified mother killed by masked men from unmarked cars who chased her down a neighborhood street and shot her in the face.

CounterPunch.org
bsmall2Jan 5

Checking the Metaphors!!!

> The dominant culture of the world teaches us that The Other is a threat, that our fellow human beings are a danger. We will all continue to be exiles in one form or another as long as we continue to accept the paradigm that the world is a racetrack or a battlefield.
– Eduardo Galeano
https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/01/05/roaming-charges-preliminary-notes-on-a-kidnapping/
#EduardoGaleano #JeffreyStClair
#CheckingTheMetaphors

Roaming Charges: Preliminary Notes on a Kidnapping

The cocksure boast that the US will "run" Venezuela appears to be another Trumpian fantasy. It’s impossible to “run a country,” if you don’t have control of it, which the US doesn’t by any measure. The Maduro government remains in place and defiant, even with Maduro renditioned to New York City. Indeed, the attack appears to have only strengthened the resolve of the Venezuelan people, instead of inspiring the chimerical uprising Rubio led Trump to expect, much as Rumsfeld and Cheney deceived Bush into believing about Iraq.

CounterPunch.org
bsmall2Dec 26

Even corporate "libertarian" goofball sites can be helpful when they world for coherency...

> Despite being the highest-profile supposedly “worst of the worst” deportees during the Trump administration, none of the CECOT deportees appear in the DHS database. The database includes just 12 individuals who DHS claims are members of Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan gang that DHS initially accused the CECOT deportees of being members of.

https://www.cato.org/blog/dhs-doesnt-list-cecot-deportees-its-worst-worst-data
#DavidBier /HT #JeffreyStClair FB
#ICEThugs #ICEAndCECOT

Brian SmallNov 19
When Lauren Vaughn, a kindergarten assistant in South Carolina, saw reports that right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk had been shot at an event in Utah, she opened Facebook and typed out a quote from Kirk himself.

Gun deaths, Kirk said in 2023, were unfortunate but “worth it” if they preserved “the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given Rights.” Following the quote, Vaughn added: “Thoughts and prayers.”

Vaughn, a 37-year-old Christian who has taken missionary trips to Guatemala, said her call for prayer was sincere. She said she hoped reading Kirk’s words in the context of the shooting might prompt her friends to rethink their opposition to gun control.


#CsncelCulture #CancelCultureCK #CharlieKirkShooting #LaurenVaughn
/HT #JeffreyStClair FB

bsmall2Nov 9

Word of the day vocabulary expansion 😲
> Joyce Carol Oates: "No matter if you are ecstatic about the new NYC mayor or plunged into despair, one thing is crucial: Mamdani overcame establishment politicians & emerged unscathed from an unusually feculent sewer of rightwing propaganda of the kind that has overwhelmed many candidates for public office (like K. Harris). if he did it, others can hope to as well."

"Feculent sewer"!
/HT #JeffreyStClair FB

bsmall2Oct 20
Things of Life
For Life to Be
With
Things of Life
Live On.
命あるものはいのちあるために命あるものと生きていく。-　鹿児島オーガニックフェスタ
> I could never get along with greed. A mafioso is a human being who embodies the best of capitalism: greed, and I am the opposite, a lover of life and therefore a millennial warrior for life. Greed flees from us, because life is more powerful.
#GustavoPetro
> Gustavo Petro's response to Trump's invective against "Columbia" and vow to cut remaining US aid to the country...
/HT #JeffreyStClair