Counterspin

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260116.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).   Fox 9 (1/15/26) This week on CounterSpin:  Headlines today on January 15: “North Minneapolis ICE shooting: Children Hospitalized After Flash Bang, Tear Gas Hits Van.” And from the official Homeland Security website: “ICE Announced the Arrest of More Worst of the Worst Criminal Illegal Aliens From Across the Country, Including Those Convicted of First-Degree Rape of a Child, Homicide and Arson.” So did the hospitalized children commit the rapes, homicides and arson? Is that why they were attacked? Or are we supposed to just muddle it all together, so that we now think “immigration equals crime”? What happens if we do that? What would happen if we didn’t? We’ll hear from Setareh Ghandehari, advocacy director at Detention Watch Network. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260116Ghandeh

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260109.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).   AP (1/6/26) This week on CounterSpin: For millions of people around the globe, the US under the administration of convicted felon Donald Trump has acted—it’s beyond “illegal”; it’s sort of “a-legal,” as if laws meant nothing—they’ve kidnapped the leader of a sovereign nation, and declared that Trump will henceforth “run” that nation. If you think flagrant bullying, Mafioso, might-makes-right behavior is what international law is created to combat, and basic human decency is designed to reject—you would be supported by the majority of the world’s people. But alas, you live in the US and rely for your world view on US media, and thus you are fed authoritarian apologies disguised as disinterested analysis, like that from AP’s headline on January 6: “Trump’s Vague Claims of the US Running Venezuela Raise Questions About Planning f

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260102.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).   The Best of CounterSpin for 2025 features Silky Shah on mass deportations, Gregory Shupak on the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, Paul Offit on RFK Jr.’s pro-virus policies, Karen Thompson on policing pregnancy, Erin Reed on anti-trans pseudo-science, Farrah Hassen on criminalizing homelessness, Mumia Abu-Jamal on unheard stories and Tom Morello on music as protest. We call it the “best of,” but, as always, we are deeply thankful to all of the activists, researchers, reporters and advocates who appear on the show. These are just a few of the void-filling conversations it’s been our pleasure to host in the last year. 2025 was a rough one; we appreciate everyone who helps us stay informed, forward-looking and in communication. Featured Image: Top row: Silky Shah, Gregory Shupak, Paul Offit and Karen Thompson; second row: Erin Ree

https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin251226.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).   AAPF (10/25) This week on CounterSpin: After every police killing of a Black person, every announced policy singling out Black immigrants as the cause of crime and disorder, every declaration, like that from Arlington National Cemetery, that as of now materials on Black and female service people will be scrubbed from the website—we hear from corporate media about how, boy, this country is for sure “reckoning” with “racism.” But then: If we reckoned with racism every time elite media claimed this country was “reckoning” with racism, seems like we ought to be fully “reckoned” by now. US corporate media have a white supremacy problem (and you see how that term lands differently than “racism”): They decide who they think, and hence you should think, is worth talking to, based on an accepted conflation of power with worthiness. They decide

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin251219.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).   Truthout (12/8/25) This week on CounterSpin: Forbes reports the Starbucks workers strike as you might expect: “The company claims it already offers the ‘best job in retail.’ … Yet the union is demanding….” “The company says, ‘We’re ready to return to the bargaining table whenever the union is.’ But as of yet, the union is holding out for the company to present a contract that meets demands….” You get the idea: One party is generous, the other is ornery. But even Forbes has to acknowledge that even as the strike “drags” into a second month, “global support grows.” Derek Seidman has been following the strike. He’s a writer, researcher and historian who contributes to Little Sis and to Truthout, where he recently reported on the Starbucks strike and…what Walmart has to do with it? https://media.blubrry.com

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin251212.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).   Popular Information (12/8/25) This week on CounterSpin: If you see no problem in news outlets reporting on desperately horrific conditions in Gaza, and what various political entities are doing or could do to address them, while a ticker at the bottom of the screen offers you an opportunity to gamble—for money—on whether or not “famine” in the region will be officially declared, this episode is not for you. We’re learning about the deal just struck by “news” outlets CNN and CNBC with the “prediction market operator” (evidently what we’re calling them now) Kalshi Inc. We’ll hear from Judd Legum—founder and author at the newsletter Popular Information—and from author and analyst Adam Johnson, of Substack‘s the Column and the podcast Citations Needed. Judd Legum’s interview: https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/conte

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin251205.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).   CEPR (12/2/25) This week on CounterSpin: A militarized US Drug Enforcement Administration force declared they’d taken out drug traffickers in the Caribbean, killing some of them in what was sold as a successful operation. Locals on the ground reported differently, saying these people weren’t drug traffickers, just human beings who happened to be on the river and got shot up by US forces who were not attacked, as they claimed, but just killed innocent people because they were given orders to kill them. It should sound familiar—but this isn’t today in Venezuela; it’s 2012 in Honduras. An inspector general review from the State Department and the Justice Department found that, no, this was not a Honduran operation, or a “joint operation” the DEA were helping with; it was a DEA operation, and it killed four innocent people and in

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin251128.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).   Opening ceremony for COP30 in Belem, Brazil (photo: Palácio do Planalto) This week on CounterSpin: US media didn’t exactly mince words: “Climate Summit Viewed as Flop by Many” was the headline the LA Times put on an AP report. The subhead explained: “The COP30 talks held in Belem, Brazil, end without a timeline for reducing fossil fuels.” The future of climate disruption, if not pulled off course, is devastating, but the present is bad enough, if you are placed, or inclined, to see it. So how could a global climate conference that doesn’t put demands on fossil fuel producers at the center be anything but a flop? The answer is not to absolve COP30 or polluting countries, much less industries, of their responsibility. But focusing some conversation on what people, including those most harmed, are doing, along with what’s being

What if SNAP weren’t a story about major political party back-and-forthing, and were instead a story about people who need food?

Housing and home ownership represent a critical vector in the project of a multi-racial democracy.

The argument is so specious a third grader could call it out. But if it comes from the Supreme Court majority, we are forced to consider it as serious.

News media need to locate the climate fight in the boardrooms of greedy people perversely trying to wring every last dime from our shared future.

Corporate reporters scratch their heads over how this bombing campaign might be legal, rather than discussing what tools can respond to wildly illegal actions.

We’re in a fight for our right to speak up, and out—but it’s not the first time.

Major media suggest we use something other than our own eyes and judgment and humanity to assess the Gaza situation, and how to act in the face of it.

Something so vaguely named as a “data center” is actually a physical thing in real neighborhoods affecting real people.

Witness testimony is how we can resist official testimony about people "resisting arrest." And you can tell how much it matters by the efforts to shut it down.

Can the Trump administration, or any administration, declare people guilty and summarily kill them based on that declaration?

It’s only an opinion that it’s wrong that our federal health agency is led by a guy who claims he can diagnose children he walks past at the airport.

You buy insurance in case something bad happens—like a fire, or a flood. But if that fire or flood is driven by climate disruption? Well, wait a minute.