Trumpian Corruption and Minnesota Fraud

BY Dean Baker

How much did the bad guys in Minnesota (yeah, some were Somali immigrants – really bad) steal from us? The best figure I could find puts it at around $250 million. That’s not trivial, but this was a pandemic-era program, started in Trump’s first term, where the priority was to get money out quickly. GAO put the amount of fraud in pandemic programs at over $300 billion. Minnesota has a bit less than 2 percent of the country’s population. This means that Minnesota should have had around $6 billion in fraud if it was keeping up with the rest of the country. Looks like Governor Walz is lagging far behind in the fraud category. More

Decoding Pro-Israel Buzzwords in a Time of Genocide

BY Norman Solomon

As historian Rashid Khalidi emphasized in his book Brokers of Deceit: How the U.S. Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East, “language matters.” Standard terms and tropes “are the essential building blocks of a lofty and solid edifice of denial of an entire narrative, of the existence of an entire people, which is basic to the affirmation of a formidable counterreality.” More

Whither the US? The Path Forward Edition

BY Rob Urie

Were the acts undertaken by the US in recent years to be listed without national or political party affiliation they would appear to have been drawn from the geopolitical catastrophes of the twentieth century. Ethnic genocide for resources and territory? Check. Bloody wars of attrition where millions die as pawns in proxy conflicts? Check. Raw imperialist regime change operations to seize the resources of foreign nations? Check. The creation of a global gulag system with which to contain inconvenient humans? Check. More

Malcolm X: Man of Peace

BY Michael K. Smith

It’s been sixty-one years since Malcolm X was gunned down in a hail of bullets at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City as he was starting to give a speech. The week before, his house had been firebombed, and days before that the French government had refused to allow him into the country to fulfill a speaking engagement, apparently fearing the assassination might take place on French soil. More

Fired Up About Unions w/ Cole Rockarts

October 9, 2026

This week on CounterPunch Radio, Erik Wallenberg and Joshua Frank talk with Cole Rockarts about their new book Fired Up About Unions, published by Between the Lines. Cole is a labor educator, organizer, and writer. They have worked in public- and private-sector unions in Canada and the US since 2016.

Cole will be kicking off their book tour in Los Angeles at Skylight Books on November 5.

Pre-order a copy of Fired Up About Unions from AK Press.

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Nurturing a Free Palestine w/ Dr. Fauziah Hasan and Azra Banu

September 12, 2026

This is part two of our series with Palestinian solidarity activists from Malaysia. Dr. Fauziah Hasan and Azra Banu of the Asia Pacific Women’s Coalition for Al Quds and Palestine discuss the importance of consisent, coalitional efforts to support Palestinian women. Dr. Fauziah sailed on the Women’s Boat to Gaza in 2016 and again on the 2025 Freedom Flotilla that was abducted by Israel. Azra participated in a humanitarian land convoy in 2010 that drove from London to Gaza, and went on a second mission to Gaza in 2012. As mothers and grandmothers, they emphasize the passing on of intergenerational activist knowledge and the necessity of nurturing a generation of young people committed to Palestinian Liberation in the Asia-Pacific.

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People Power w/ Norma Hashim & Dr. Nazari Ismail of BDS Malaysia

August 28, 2026

Rebecca Maria Goldschmidt speaks with Norma Hashim and Dr. Nazari Ismail from the Hashim Sani Center for Palestine Studies at Universiti Malaya in Kuala Lumpur in this two-part podcast with solidarity activists from Malaysia. Hashim and Dr. Ismail share reflections on almost two decades of grassroots organizing with BDS Malaysia and Viva Palestina Malaysia. They discuss the recent closure of The Network School, an experimental project in “tech zionism”, and other successful campaigns to divest from Israeli companies. The Malaysian consumer boycott of Starbucks led to the closure of over 45+ locations. Their McDonald’s boycott sparked a viral legal battle, and the struggle continues against complicit corporations like Google, Amazon, Caterpillar, and resource extraction companies that serve the Pentagon, including the Australian rare earth miner Lynas. Alongside their advocacy work, Hashim shares updates from daily relief work to support communities in Gaza, who continue to survive in the unbearable living conditions.

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