Popular Education

With Venezuela destabilized and Maduro removed, Cuba has lost its key trading partner.

In the wake of the coup in Venezuela, Washington has moved to intensify pressure on Cuba. 🧵

Like Melania Doc, WaPo Layoffs Are Another Way for Bezos to Suck Up to Trump The Washington Post’s losses, reportedly as much as $100 million a year, are mere pocket change for Jeff Bezos.

In the past year at the Washington Post, Jeff Bezos has:

- Spiked the Harris endorsement

- Gutted the newsroom with massive layoffs

- Authorized a $40M Amazon deal for a Melania doc

- Limited the Post's opinion pages to only promoting "Free Markets & Personal Liberties"

fair.org/home/like-me...

Trump Administration Erases the Government’s Power to Fight Climate Change

Trump just handed corporate polluters their biggest win in decades — gutting the EPA’s authority under the Clean Air Act.

This is the culmination of years of lobbying: weaken the rules, sideline the science, and let industry write the terms of its own oversight.

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/12/c...

With Maduro gone and Venezuela’s oil under U.S. "oversight," Mexico is the only thing standing between Cuba and a potential humanitarian collapse. 🇲🇽⚖️🇨🇺

Growing US Aggression Is a Symptom of Imperial Decline From the Americas to the Middle East, the US is deploying the crudest forms of imperial aggression to shore up its power. This is ultimately a sign of weakness rather than strength, as the foundations...

"Meanwhile, the domestic legitimacy of the US state has cratered, and trust in major US institutions — the media, the universities, the state itself — is at an all-time low. Only 17 percent of Americans trust their government to “do what is right.”

jacobin.com/2026/02/us-i...

Innovation under capitalism has one goal: lower labor costs to raise corporate profits. We are more productive than ever, but the owners are pocketing the difference.

Trump's New Sanctions Push Cuba Toward Crisis Cuba faces an energy squeeze as Trump escalates sanctions and threatens tariffs on nations supplying the island with oil.

Trump has Cuba in his crosshairs. 🇨🇺

Washington is using tariffs to force Mexico to abandon Cuba. By cutting off oil lifelines following the coup in Venezuela, the US is intentionally engineering a humanitarian crisis.

Read the full article here:
populareducationblog.substack.com/p/trumps-new...

Step 1: Use a "financial reset" as a pretext to fire journalists covering race, labor, and grassroots activism.

Step 2: The "surviving" editorial board immediately pivots to lecture the public on why they must comply with the federal deportation machine.

Cuba Sends Doctors, the US Sends Sanctions The United States calls Cuba’s medical internationalism "human trafficking" — but it’s really an internationalist lifeline for the Global South.

"Since 1960, some 600,000 Cuban medical professionals have provided free health care in over 180 countries. The government of Cuba has assumed the lion’s share of the cost of its medical internationalism, a huge contribution to the Global South"

jacobin.com/2025/03/cuba...

Trump's New Sanctions Push Cuba Toward Crisis Cuba faces an energy squeeze as Trump escalates sanctions and threatens tariffs on nations supplying the island with oil.

Trump’s latest tariff threats put Cuba’s energy lifeline and the island’s economy under renewed strain.

With oil shipments threatened, Cuba confronts a looming humanitarian and economic crisis that could rival the 1990s Special Period.

populareducationblog.substack.com/p/trumps-new...

2,255 measles cases in 2025. 416 in January alone.

This is the direct result of the Trump administration’s war on science. By gutting vaccine schedules and elevating ideologues, they have traded 25 years of progress for a public health catastrophe.

Trump administration weighs naval blockade to halt Cuban oil imports “Energy is the chokehold to kill” the Cuban regime, said a person familiar with the discussions.

A naval blockade isn't a "measure"—it's an escalation that risks lives and regional stability. The Trump admin is willing to trigger a massive humanitarian crisis just to prove it can control the trade of sovereign nations.

www.politico.com/news/2026/01...

Popular Education | Dan Miller | Substack My personal Substack. Click to read Popular Education, by Dan Miller, a Substack publication. Launched 5 months ago.

We’ll be publishing each installment of the Venezuela series on our Substack—and subscriptions are completely free.
If you want the next article in your inbox the moment it drops, sign up here:
populareducationblog.substack.com

What Oil Executives Really Want From Venezuela After meeting with Trump, U.S. oil executives made clear that investment hinges not on market conditions, but on legal and political reforms designed to protect foreign capital.

Removing Maduro was just the first step. Now, US oil companies are angling for a total restructure of the Venezuelan state to ensure that human rights and labor laws never get in the way of extraction. This is what modern-day colonialism looks like.

populareducationblog.substack.com/p/what-oil-e...

Americans Are Paying For Trump’s Tariffs, Study Finds A new study from the Kiel Institute found that foreign exporters only absorb 4% of tariff burden.

Trump’s tariffs aren't being paid by foreign countries—they are a $200B tax hike on the working class. A new study shows Americans are footing 96% of the bill, as corporations protect their profits by passing every cent of the cost down to consumers.

time.com/7353475/trum...

After Donations, Trump Administration Revoked Rule Requiring More Nursing Home Staff

The nursing home industry donated $4.8 million to Trump's super PAC in Aug-Sept, so Trump scrapped the rule requiring them to comply with mandated staffing levels.

It’s a blatant pay-to-play scheme where the industry buys deregulation through political donations.

www.nytimes.com/2026/01/27/u...

Government by AI? Trump Administration Plans to Write Regulations Using Artificial Intelligence The Transportation Department, which oversees the safety of airplanes, cars and pipelines, plans to use Google Gemini to draft new regulations. “We don’t need the perfect rule,” said DOT’s top lawyer....

After firing thousands of DOT workers, the Trump admin is replacing career experts with AI to draft safety laws in minutes. It’s a deliberate hollowing out of the state to remove the experts who actually hold industry accountable.

www.propublica.org/article/trum...

Videos From Minnesota Show How Aggressive ICE Has Gotten During Arrests and Encounters With Protesters For weeks, residents have documented the impact of President Trump’s mass deportation campaign and captured many violent confrontations on camera.

Key findings include:

- Using "administrative warrants" to enter homes without judicial oversight.

- Interrogating U.S. citizens based on their "accent."

- Shoving and pepper spraying protesters

- Operating in unmarked cars and masks to avoid accountability.

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

The core trio of modern economic myths:

– "Wealth will trickle down"
– "Tariffs are paid by foreign countries"
– "Manufacturing jobs are coming back"

Wild how the EU manages longer lives, lower poverty, less violence, and less debt—without turning everything into a for-profit extraction scheme.

Translation:

If you’re an educated working-class person capable of identifying how society is structured to extract value upward and concentrate wealth, the state increasingly treats that political awareness as a security threat—criminalizing your existence by labeling you a domestic terrorist.

ICE has stopped paying for detainee medical treatment ICE halted payments in October, and the situation will persist for at least several more months

"ICE’s failure to pay its bills for months has caused some medical providers to deny services to ICE detainees, an administration source, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press, told Popular Information."

popular.info/p/ice-has-st...

Billionaires have ‘outsized’ political influence — and they’re richer than ever, says Oxfam Billionaires' wealth has risen sharply to a record high of $18.3 trillion — with the super-rich seeking power "for their own gain," according to Oxfam.

- Billionaires’ wealth reached a record high of $18.3 trillion in 2025

- At the same time, poverty reduction has slowed

- Billionaires have an ‘outsized’ influence on politics, and governments have allowed the super-rich to ‘dominate’ the media and social media

www.cnbc.com/2026/01/19/b...

This surge isn’t about talent or innovation. It’s about suppressed wages, inflated asset values, and rules rewritten in capital’s favor. When labor loses power, surplus flows upward. That’s not failure—it’s capitalism operating normally.

Trump Wants Nations to Pay $1 Billion to Stay on His Peace Board The Trump administration is asking countries that want a permanent spot on his new Board of Peace to contribute at least $1 billion.

Trump’s “Board of Peace,” according to the draft charter:

• $1B buy-in for permanent membership
• Trump as chairman with veto power
• Trump controls the agenda and money
• Members can be removed
• Built as a rival to the UN

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

TVs down 98%
Toys down 74%
Cellphones down 43%

Healthcare up 275%
Childcare up 185%
Housing up 111%

We’ve made it cheaper to escape reality than to live in it.

Trump selling Venezuela’s oil to megadonors isn’t a scandal — it’s textbook imperialism: state power deployed to reorganize another nation’s resources for capital.

Popular Education | Dan Miller | Substack My personal Substack. Click to read Popular Education, by Dan Miller, a Substack publication. Launched 5 months ago.

We’ll be publishing each installment of the Venezuela series on our Substack—and subscriptions are completely free.
If you want the next article in your inbox the moment it drops, sign up here:
populareducationblog.substack.com

What Oil Executives Really Want From Venezuela After meeting with Trump, U.S. oil executives made clear that investment hinges not on market conditions, but on legal and political reforms designed to protect foreign capital.

Oil CEOs aren’t saying “no” to Venezuela. They’re saying “rewrite the country first.” This article breaks down how corporate demands for legal and economic overhaul may predict the next phase of U.S. intervention.
populareducationblog.substack.com/p/what-oil-e...

Exclusive: Secret ICE Programs Revealed Leaked documents detail the dizzying scope of ICE operations

ICE has evolved — far beyond what most people realize.
Leaked documents detail covert operations and intelligence programs hidden from public view.
Here’s what’s really happening 👇
www.kenklippenstein.com/p/21-secret-...