CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Roaming Charges: the Jesus of Uncool

Tears from Heaven for the Jesus of Uncool (Apologies to Nick Lowe), Getty Museum. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

The Mafia is not an outsider in this world; it is perfectly at home. Indeed, in the integrated spectacle, it stands as the model of all advanced commercial enterprises. – Guy Debord

The Mafia is not an outsider in this world; it is perfectly at home. Indeed, in the integrated spectacle, it stands as the model of all advanced commercial enterprises.

Donald Trump’s few remaining defenders are now reduced to explaining his increasingly erratic behavior as a ploy, that like Hamlet (I mean, the Don can play Jesus on Truth Social, so why not Hamlet on Fox News?), he is merely putting on “an antic disposition,” and is only “mad North-by-Northwest.,” not mad “true north,” not truly insane, but only acting so, as part of some still obscure deep strategy. Yet imagine the state of imperial entropy the US must’ve reached that its $1 trillion war-making budget and 5,000 nuclear warheads no longer command respect or obedience from smaller, much less powerful nations, so that its leader must pretend to be deranged in order to frighten people into submission … and even then, they still resist.

In Trump’s America (as in most previous versions of America), crime pays. But war crimes pay better. JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup and Wells Fargo reported more than $25 billion in profits for the first quarter…

According to the American Farm Bureau, the overwhelming majority of farmers, most of whom voted for Trump, now can’t afford to buy the fertilizer needed for this year’s crops. More than 70% of the farmers polled by the Farm Bureau say the price of fertilizer is now too high for them to buy all they need.

Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the IMF: “I am concerned that the oil shock is taking attention away from pressing issues, including AI and financial stability risks.”

The Economist: “Roughly 18.5 million of Iran’s 93 million people live within a kilometre of a reported airstrike, as do 8.4 million people in other countries.”

The US and  Israel have bombed 763 schools and 316 health facilities in Iran since the war began, according to the Iranian Red Crescent.

JD Vance saying the quiet part out loud about the US blockade on the Strait of Hormuz:

What they have done is engage in this act of economic terrorism against the entire world. As the President showed, two can play at that game.

What they have done is engage in this act of economic terrorism against the entire world. As the President showed, two can play at that game.

Vance well knows (or should) that economic terrorism has always been the US’s most efficient way of killing. As Cockburn wrote of Robert McNamara: “After McNamara contributed more than most to the slaughter of 3.4 million Vietnamese (his own estimate), he went on to run the World Bank, where he presided over the impoverishment, eviction from their lands and death of many millions more round the world.”

Bloomberg News: “A hoard of Iranian crude on tankers at sea and robust onshore stockpiles in China will provide a cushion for the nation’s independent refiners should a US blockade of the Strait of Hormuz choke off flows.”

Kim Jung Un of North Korea, with an ironic gleam in his eyes, offers to broker peace between the US and Iran: “I am always ready to sit down with the US President at any time to make efforts for a mediation with Iran to produce an outcome that the international community would welcome.”

The IMF’s World Economic Outlook report on the possible repercussions of the Iran war is grim reading:

“In the severe scenario, (1) The shock to commodity prices is more severe and persistent, with oil prices increasing by 100 percent starting in the second quarter of 2026, relative to the January 2026 WEO Update baseline, but also staying at that level in 2027, before dissipating in 2028 (corresponding to an average petroleum spot price index of about $110 per barrel in 2026 and about $125 in 2027). Gas prices for Europe and Asia increase by 200 percent over the same period, and food commodity prices increase by 5 percent in 2026 and 10 percent in 2027. (2) One-year-ahead inflation expectations ratchet up by as much as 100 basis points in advanced economies by 2027 and by as much as 130 basis points in emerging markets excluding China, also by 2027. (3) A significant risk-off episode pushes up corporate premiums in advanced economies and in China by 100 basis points in 2026, and they stay at that level in 2027, while emerging markets excluding China experience a widening in sovereign spreads of 100 basis points over the same period, along with an increase in corporate spreads of 200 basis points. As in the adverse scenario, the monetary policy response is geared toward containing inflationary pressures rather than stabilizing output.”

“In the severe scenario, (1) The shock to commodity prices is more severe and persistent, with oil prices increasing by 100 percent starting in the second quarter of 2026, relative to the January 2026 WEO Update baseline, but also staying at that level in 2027, before dissipating in 2028 (corresponding to an average petroleum spot price index of about $110 per barrel in 2026 and about $125 in 2027). Gas prices for Europe and Asia increase by 200 percent over the same period, and food commodity prices increase by 5 percent in 2026 and 10 percent in 2027. (2) One-year-ahead inflation expectations ratchet up by as much as 100 basis points in advanced economies by 2027 and by as much as 130 basis points in emerging markets excluding China, also by 2027. (3) A significant risk-off episode pushes up corporate premiums in advanced economies and in China by 100 basis points in 2026, and they stay at that level in 2027, while emerging markets excluding China experience a widening in sovereign spreads of 100 basis points over the same period, along with an increase in corporate spreads of 200 basis points. As in the adverse scenario, the monetary policy response is geared toward containing inflationary pressures rather than stabilizing output.”

Reporter: “How much longer will Americans continue to see these high gas prices?” 

Trump: “Well, they’re not very high. If you look at what they were supposed to be in order to get rid of a nuclear weapon, with the danger that entails, so the gas prices have come down very much over the last three, four days.”

Reporter: “$4 a gallon still.”

Trump: “I know, you know, that’s what ABC says, but the fact is that if you look, the stock market’s up, everything is doing really well. And the big thing we have to do is we have to make sure that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon, because if they do, you want to talk about problems, you’d have problems. So, very important is it that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon, and they’ve agreed to that. Iran’s agreed to it, and they’ve agreed to do it very powerfully.”

The national average price of gas per gallon, according to AAA, when Trump told this whopper, was $4.09 a gallon. It was $4.992 a gallon in Oregon and $5.o3 a gallon here in the Portland metro area.

In 2025, the US imported 5 percent of its oil from the Middle East.

Kevin Hassert: “Imagine if oil prices start going back down because the situation resolves itself somehow, then you could be looking at an inflation close to zero. That’s something the Fed needs to pay attention to.”

Imagine there’s no Hormuz, it’s easy if you lie No blockade, mines or missiles, the prices not sky high…

Imagine there’s no Hormuz, it’s easy if you lie No blockade, mines or missiles, the prices not sky high…

After ranting that Pope Leo from the Southside was “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,” Trump posted this delusional image of himself as Jesus on Truth Social engaged in an act of magical healing (the only kind available to most Americans with RFK, Jr running health policy for the country), as an F-35 wobbles across the sky, unable the fly straight in a 12-mph wind gust…

Katie Rogers at the NYT getting some subtly righteous revenge against the man who called her “ugly inside and out”…

The image showed President Trump in a white and red robe, commonly used in renderings of Jesus Christ and in Scripture prophesying his return. Bright golden light, which is used to depict divine intervention in religious imagery, radiated from Mr. Trump’s hand as he touched the forehead of a sick man. A woman observed the scene with her hands steepled in prayer. As he received two bags of a McDonald’s food delivery to the Oval Office on Monday morning, Mr. Trump told reporters that he did not catch all that religious imagery. He said he had thought the image he had posted to his Truth Social account had depicted him not as Jesus — but as a physician. “I thought it was me as a doctor,” Mr. Trump said of the social media post, which he deleted after an outcry. “Only the fake news could come up with that.”

The image showed President Trump in a white and red robe, commonly used in renderings of Jesus Christ and in Scripture prophesying his return. Bright golden light, which is used to depict divine intervention in religious imagery, radiated from Mr. Trump’s hand as he touched the forehead of a sick man. A woman observed the scene with her hands steepled in prayer.

As he received two bags of a McDonald’s food delivery to the Oval Office on Monday morning, Mr. Trump told reporters that he did not catch all that religious imagery. He said he had thought the image he had posted to his Truth Social account had depicted him not as Jesus — but as a physician.

“I thought it was me as a doctor,” Mr. Trump said of the social media post, which he deleted after an outcry. “Only the fake news could come up with that.”

Trump: “Hand me my surgical robes, Nurse, the red one for terminal cases, and the glowing elixir. No, not the Pfizer, dammit! The Moderna. You know their CEO contributed to my ballroom!”

Evidently, Trump can’t recite or even name a single Bible verse, which, if he truly is the anointed prophet of the Messiah, raises considerable doubts as to whether the Latin Vulgate and literalist ESV (English Standard Version) are the true Bible authorized by the Big Guy or a fraud perpetrated by the sinister translator Jerome, that old misogynist, and Irenaeus of Lyons, who purged the Gnostic gospels from the biblical canon and perverted the meaning of the original Greek…

Leo from the Southside making the Southside proud, while denouncing neocolonialism in Algeria:

The future belongs (to) those who do not allow themselves to be blinded by power or wealth. Africa knows all too well that people and ​organizations that dominate others destroy the world.

The future belongs (to) those who do not allow themselves to be blinded by power or wealth. Africa knows all too well that people and ​organizations that dominate others destroy the world.

As even the religious right cringed at Trump sliming the Pope and depicting himself as Jesus, the ever-unctuous Mike Johnson attacked the Pope on Trump’s behalf:

A religious leader can say anything they want, but obviously, if you wade into political waters, you should expect some political response and I think the Pope has received some of that. Frankly, I was........

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