Lmst

Roland Klose

editor/writer | ex-P-D CA IT RFT etc. | St. Louis | https://rwklose.com

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If Congress had exercised its powers with respect to Venezuela, would it have slowed the rush to war with Iran? https://pdowns.substack.com/p/if-congress-had-exerted-its-rights #iran #war #congress #venezuela

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., speaks during a Senate Homeland Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)

“War is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states alone, but affect the whole world. To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.” — International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, 1946 https://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/judnazi.asp#common #iran

Smoke rises up after a strike in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, March 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

The arm of a deceased person is seen protruding from the rubble as rescue workers and residents search in the aftermath of what Iranian officials said was an Israeli-U.S. strike on a girls' elementary school in Minab, Iran, Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026. (Abbas Zakeri/Mehr News Agency via AP)

“All rebels passing through St. Louis, Mo., are cordially invited to visit L.U. No. 84, I.W.W. at its fine new hall, at 1320 Franklin Avenue.” (The union hall was razed years ago and replaced by a parking lot.) #union #labor #stlouis

A photograph of Wobblies at their new union hall in St. Louis was published on Aug. 7, 1913, by the New Orleans-based Voice of the People.

Socialist excellence: Zohran Mamdani came to power in New York City on an ambitious platform of public service delivery, and not just because this is the right thing to do, but because investment in a city’s people and built environment pays off handsomely. https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/24/mamdani-thought/#public-excellence #politics #mamdani #socialism

New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks to reporters about the city's finances during a news conference in New York, Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

A look at a disruptive technology whose idealistic inventors sought to link its introduction to programs that would assist displaced workers. https://rustcottonpicker.blog/ #labor #technology #history #tech

Rust cotton pickers, seen here in Memphis in 1938.

Rust cotton picker on Cloverdale Plantation, Clarksdale, Mississippi Delta, Mississippi

“Successful Inventions” magazine featured a Rust design in October 1936: “Since 1850 many inventors have labored at the problem and more than 1,400 patents have found their way into the Patent Office files, but until the appearance of the Rust Brothers’ machine, mechanical picking of cotton remained nothing more than a challenge to inventive genius.”

As an environmental lawyer, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. crusaded against glyphosate, even winning a landmark case against chemical giant Monsanto by arguing that its Roundup weedkiller contributed to his client’s cancer. Now as US health secretary, Kennedy is backing Trump’s executive order that’s aimed at boosting glyphosate production. MAHA’s pissed. https://apnews.com/article/maha-glyphosate-rfk-kennedy-trump-pesticides-3d23d4771dba743a976543ca6cfa69d9 #environment #glyphosate

Robert Kennedy Jr. seen here on Capitol Hill, Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

“All the problems afflicting our era — from the rise of ultra-nationalist parties to perpetual wars, hatred for migrants, the environmental catastrophe that is especially hitting the Global South, and the mental health crisis, especially among younger people — can be explained by an economic system that oppresses the majority both nationally and globally.” — from Clara Mattei’s new “Escape from Capitalism.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M_dq_0ljsc #capitalism #economics #politics

A screen shot of Clara Mattei, a professor of economics at the University of Tulsa, taken during a recent BBC interview.

US household debt hit a record high of nearly $18.8 trillion at the end of 2025, driven by surging credit card balances, student loans, and rising auto loan delinquencies. Americans are going deeper in debt because their wages aren’t keeping up with inflation. Meanwhile, Trump uses the presidency to enrich himself. https://www.newyorkfed.org/microeconomics/hhdc #economics #politics

A gold-colored item embossed with the word 'President' sits on the Resolute desk in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Nov. 10, 2025. (AP Photo, Jacquelyn Martin, File)

Videos analyzed by The New York Times contradict the accounts of Homeland Security officials, who said that the man approached Border Patrol agents with a handgun and the intent to “massacre” them. Footage of the encounter shows the man was holding a phone in his hand, not a gun, when federal agents took him to the ground and shot him. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/us/minneapolis-shooting-ice

Federal agents stand near the site of a shooting Saturday, Jan. 24, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)

A bereaved father in Gaza tries to will his son back from the dead https://apnews.com/article/gaza-glimpse-israel-palestinians-father-74042f3a8f549e726d7f29159a64d335 #gaza #palestine

Yusuf Zawara mourns over the body of his son, Mohammad Zawara, 15, who was killed in an Israeli strike, according to health officials, at Shifa Hospital, Gaza City, Saturday, Jan. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Yousef Al Zanoun)

As world leaders gathered at a Swiss resort, a Palestinian baby died Tuesday from hypothermia in the Gaza Strip, underscoring the grim humanitarian conditions in the territory. Shaza Abu Jarad was the ninth child to die from severe cold this winter in Gaza, according to the strip’s health ministry. https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-gaza-trump-board-2ee74b98369ee1bcd574ac2dce3a0645m #gaza #palestine

Khalid Abu Jarad holds the body of his 3-month-old niece, Shaza Abu Jarad, who, according to the health ministry, died from hypothermia, in Gaza City, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

“We must all accept some responsibility for the gangster behavior of ICE agents on our streets and the shocking killings of Renee Good and others. Our complacency allowed it to happen. We didn’t pull the trigger, but our complacency allowed ICE agents to think they had the right to get belligerent and aggressive with someone who only annoyed them. Our complacency allowed an ICE agent to think he had the right to kill someone because he was angry.” https://pdowns.substack.com/p/murder-and-complacency #ICE

Aliya Rahman is detained by federal agents near the scene where Renee Good was fatally shot by an ICE officer last week, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)

Israeli settlers rampaged through a Palestinian village in the West Bank, setting fire to a series of structures, according to security camera footage obtained by @AssociatedPress on Sunday, in an overnight onslaught that has become a common phenomenon in the occupied territory. https://apnews.com/article/mideast-wars-israeli-settlers-palestinians-west-bank-0eaa662c76cdc2cd18bd9f4713d4d28d #palestine #israel

Palestinian Authority’s Jerusalem governorate said in a statement that dozens of settlers had attacked the village of Khirbet al-Sidra, injuring two Palestinians, who were hospitalised, and two activists. It said at least eight homes and two vehicles were burned in the attack.

A teen was shot and his body crushed by a bulldozer, one about at least 57 Palestinians who have been killed by Israelis for being too close to the poorly defined “yellow line” in Gaza. “This is basically what you get when you simply let Trump make an image and post it on Truth Social and let the IDF make their own,” one geolocation specialist told @AssociatedPress https://apnews.com/article/gaza-ceasefire-yellow-line-062f3a55d737cc83607c0ddacf312df0 #gaza #palestine

A yellow block demarcating the "Yellow Line," which has separated the Gaza Strip's Israeli-held and Palestinian zones since the October ceasefire, is visible in Jabalia, northern Gaza Strip. where Hamas militants are searching for the remains of hostages, Monday, Dec. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

“That’ll teach him to respect law and order.”

Illustration by L.R. Hale, published in the April 1933 edition of New Masses, shows uniformed officers surrounding and beating an individual. It’s captioned: “That’ll teach him to respect law and order.”

In 1950, around the time the federal government was moving Mallinckrodt’s radioactive waste to the airport area in north St. Louis County, the Post-Dispatch republished a National Security Resources Board booklet on surviving an A-bomb blast. The booklet minimized the effects of lingering radiation; it asserted that survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki “are not riddled with cancer.” A link to the original booklet: https://www.orau.org/health-physics-museum/files/library/civil-defense/survival-under-atomic-attack.pdf And a timeline: https://rwklose.com/st-louis-atomic-legacy/ #stlouis #nuclear

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch republished “Survival Under Atomic Attack,” a National Security Resource Board booklet, on Dec. 17, 1950. St. Louis-based Mallinckrodt Chemical was a leading processor of uranium ore for the U.S. military at the time; radioactive waste from the production affected and sickened thousands of St. Louis residents.

German immigrant Otto Brandenburger sold “toys, fancy goods & notions,” as well as cigars and tobacco, from this business and residence at 515 S. Broadway. His sister, Wilhemina, was a “sales lady” there; she could be the woman in the second-story window. They left for Los Angeles around 1902-1903. #stlouis #germany #immigration

A cropped photograph from the online collections of the Missouri Historical Society showing the “O. Brandenburger toys, fancy goods & notions” store at 515 S. Broadway, at the current site of Busch Stadium. The undated image, which is attributed to Charles Clement Holt, does not identify the location of the business, but the information is readily available by searching census, city directory, and other records. Because the building advertises “St. Louisiana” 5-cent cigars made by the Bente Cigar Company of St. Louis, the photo was likely taken in 1900 or 1901. Here is the link to the historical society’s photo: https://mohistory.org/collections/item/P0245-S03-00010-8g

75 years ago, President Harry S Truman responded to a music critic’s review of his daughter’s recital by threatening to beat him up: “Some day I hope to meet you. When that happens you’ll need a new nose, a lot of beefsteak for black eyes, and perhaps a supporter below!” #missouri

A United Press article, headlined “Critic Who Panned Margaret Gets Abusive White House ‘H.S.T.’ Note,” was published on the front page of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Dec. 8, 1950.

President Truman’s angry note to Washington Post music critic Paul Hume is owned by conservative activist Harlan Crow, a Texas billionaire who reportedly also owns a U.S. Supreme Court justice.

Two years after scoring headlines in the St. Louis press, Eddie Fay and his boxing cats Whitey and Felix are featured in Parade, the nationwide Sunday newspaper magazine, reaching an audience of millions. More here -> https://rwklose.com/2024/01/14/miscellania/ #cats