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Stu Smith Profile picture
@thestustustudio
May 27 • 5 tweets • 2 min read • Read on X
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🚨 Manolo’s Cuba “Aid” Pitch Turns Into a Call for Political Upheaval Inside America

In an interview yesterday from Havana, The People’s Forum executive director Manolo de los Santos essentially said material aid is not what Cuba needs most right now.

What will “help Cuba the most,” he says, is “massive mobilization” inside the United States to “change the reality within the United States.” He says that would also help Mexico, Iran, and “the people of the world.”

You need a far-left dictionary to know what Manolo means by “massive mobilization” and “reality,” but he is pretty clearly calling for a mass uprising to change America’s political reality.
This fits Manolo’s broader thesis. America has mass mobilizations, but never the revolution, because there is no vanguard to discipline the chaos and turn it into power.

That sounds insane to say out loud, but listen to him say it himself.
This is from the Youth Brigade trip to Cuba.

His latest interview gives you a taste of the anti-imperialist worldview, but this clip makes it clearer.

Cuba is part of a global anti-American front that connects Havana to North Korea, Iran, and beyond.
Despite all the scrutiny around The People’s Forum, nothing has happened.

Meanwhile, saying Manolo has been jet-setting is an understatement. He even had a high-level Havana meeting with Cuba’s president and top figures from the Singham network.
Another wild stop on Manolo’s global tour was Burkina Faso, where he went to study anti-Western, Sankara-style revolutionary politics.

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More from @thestustustudio

Stu Smith Profile picture
May 25
🚨 Hasan Names Singham, PSL, ANSWER, and Code Pink in One Breath

On stream today, Hasan Piker discussed the reported Treasury scrutiny and said the broader target is “probably Singham” and “his operation,” naming PSL (Party for Socialism and Liberation), ANSWER Coalition, Code Pink, and “anything that he has ever financed.”

He then acknowledged that Roy Singham lives in China and has been “a funding vehicle” for political movements and activism in the United States.

That is exactly why this matters.

This was never just about one influencer’s Cuba trip. It is about the Singham-linked ecosystem, the groups it funds, the delegations it supports, and the political operations built around them.

Hasan didn’t refute the network. He mapped it.
Singham usually stays far from the public-facing side of the operation. His influence runs through subordinates, funding channels, and the groups orbiting his network.

That’s why it stands out when people inside that ecosystem mention him directly.
Fergie Chambers, another far-left financier funding similar projects, offers a pretty revealing critique of the Singham network and how little transparency there is around Singham’s role. Image
Read 5 tweets
Stu Smith Profile picture
May 25
🧵 Medea Benjamin of Code Pink is reportedly on the subpoena list over the Nuestra América Cuba convoy, and honestly, I would love to know the finances behind what she says here.

In one clip, she says you can’t blame the Cuban government until the “blockade” is lifted, encourages Americans to travel to Cuba and spend money, praises Cuba’s China-backed solar buildout, directs donations to Global Health Partners, Code Pink, and Pastors for Peace, invokes Che Guevara and Fidel Castro, touts Cuba’s medical system, and says there is “no reason” to treat Cuba differently just because it is communist.

She also says they have been sending “thousands of pounds” of medicine and food every two weeks, with another 2,500 pounds going out.

That is exactly the kind of thing investigators should want to understand. Who funded it? Who bought it? Who transported it? Who received it? What licenses covered it? And how much money moved through this “humanitarian” pipeline?

Stick around for some Medea lore and other fascinating moments.
Medea Benjamin says she first went to Cuba in 1979, ended up living there for three years, married a Cuban, and had a child there.

She says Cuban doctors told her there was “no malnutrition in Cuba,” that Cuba’s problem was “obesity,” and that the only “malnourished” child she saw was supposedly her own.

Then she calls the late 1970s and 1980s Cuba’s “good old days,” when Soviet support helped counteract U.S. sanctions.

This is the lens she brings to Cuba, not skepticism, not accountability, but decades of revolutionary nostalgia.
More Medea lore, and this one shows how the activist worlds connect.

The intro from Sue Ellen Klein walks through Benjamin's 2014 Gaza delegation attempt, Egyptian detention, broken arm, and broader flotilla activism.

Then Medea immediately connects Gaza to Cuba, saying the March Nuestra América trip included Palestinian Americans and that they met Palestinians being trained for free in Cuba’s medical school.

She says more than 1,000 Palestinians have been trained there.

And remember, Medea frames Cuba’s medical system as producing “revolutionary doctors,” rooted in the vision of Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, and the Cuban Revolution.
Read 6 tweets
Stu Smith Profile picture
May 24
🚨 BREAKING: Hasan Piker addressed the reported Treasury investigation on his livestream, and even he admits the news is “not great.”

“I’m not gonna lie to you guys. It’s not great. The news is not great, OK? I mean, it’s bullshit, but still not great that they’re after your boy. They’re up my ass.”

He then joked with viewers chanting “free me,” responding:

“Free me, free me. I can’t believe I’m saying that.”

For all the bravado, Hasan clearly understands this is serious.
Hasan Piker says he found out about the reported federal subpoena from a Fox News producer, not from the government.

According to Hasan, he got a voicemail saying he had been subpoenaed and asking for comment. Before he could respond, the article was already on the timeline.

“I got a text message, or rather a voicemail, from a Fox News producer saying that I had been subpoenaed by the federal government.”

“Before I could even respond to the journalist, an article materialized on the timeline.”“Let’s just say that kind of fucked my whole night up.”

The funniest part is that even after learning he was reportedly in federal subpoena territory, Hasan says he still made time for “a little tub sesh.”
Hasan calls the scrutiny “pure evil,” then casually acknowledges his photo with Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans, who is also reportedly under investigation.

“This is Jodie Evans, who I took a photo with. They love this photo for some reason. I don’t know why. She’s one of the co-founders of Code Pink. She’s wonderful.”

He also mocks the DSA connection.

“The DSA does not promote me as a headline member. But, you know, fuck it. We ball.”

Hasan has gone back and forth on DSA, at times distancing himself as more of a fan than a member, while also embracing the brand, wearing the merch, and promoting the broader ecosystem.

So I understand why Fox frames him as DSA-adjacent, and I also understand why Hasan wants to push back on being described as a “headline member.”

But the connection is not imaginary. DSA’s own NPC has credited Hasan with helping drive merchandise sales, which tells you they see his platform as valuable, whether or not he wants the formal label.
Read 5 tweets
Stu Smith Profile picture
May 24
Now that Treasury is reportedly probing Medea Benjamin and Hasan Piker over the Cuba convoy, Medea’s own report-back from the Nuestra América Convoy deserves another look.

The reported probe is tied to possible Cuba sanctions and travel violations, with OFAC involved. And in barely three minutes, Medea practically narrates the subpoena checklist herself:

A planning meeting in Colombia with Progressive International’s David Adler and other activists. Gaza flotilla veterans. Fourteen to twenty tons of aid. More shipments coming. Solar panels. Pacemakers. Travel pipelines into Cuba. And explicit encouragement for Americans to go there and spend dollars.

Then come the little IYKYK details: praise for Gerardo Hernández of the Cuban Five, plus solidarity and travel coordination with ICAP.

By their own telling, this was never just “humanitarian aid.” It was material aid, travel, money, propaganda, and political coordination wrapped into one Cuba operation.
You might be asking: “The Colombia meeting?”

Benjamin is referring to this wild Progressive International gathering in Colombia — the kind of event that brought together DSA electeds, Bill de Blasio, and a broader cast of the international left.
I usually date the convoy’s origins to about a month earlier, when Medea Benjamin was already discussing the idea.

It had been cooking for months before it happened, which likely means there is a sizable paper trail to follow.
Read 5 tweets
Stu Smith Profile picture
May 16
🧵 What a rough night for Nithya Raman.

Hasan Piker put the LA mayoral candidate and DSA member through a full-on struggle session over her record, repeatedly pressing her to explain where she had fallen short of the movement line.

And honestly, even as a conservative, I felt bad for her. This was brutal.

One flashpoint was a DSA criticism over Raman’s role in a city resolution tied to the UTLA BDS fight. But the exchange was bigger than that. This was not a good-faith interview. It was an ideological audit.

Raman mostly tried to answer politically. She came to DSA through housing and homelessness, said this was not her area of expertise, said she had learned more, and promised she was “committed to learning more.”

Stick around for more, because by the end of this even Hasan’s chat wanted his head.
This is where Piker's “interview” really became a purity test.

“Do you believe Israel has a right to exist in its current form as an ethnostate that’s currently being investigated for genocide at the International Court of Justice?”

Raman answered, “Yes, I do believe that Israel has a right to exist,” but added that she wants countries to operate “without apartheid” and “with equality in their borders.”

Hasan immediately followed up: “Do you believe that Israel is an apartheid state then?”

Raman said, “I think that it is, yeah.”

Then Hasan brought up her 2024 censure from DSA-LA over accepting the Democrats for Israel LA endorsement, asking whether, “knowing what we know now and seeing the videos of Gaza in ruins,” she would still seek it out.

Raman said, “I wouldn’t seek it out now,” pointed to her ceasefire resolution, and then tried to bring the conversation back to what a mayor actually does: keeping Angelenos safe, protecting protest rights, and pushing back against both antisemitism and Islamophobia.
Hasan brought up Raman’s 2020 call to “defund the police” and her old platform calling for LAPD to become a “much smaller specialized force.”

Then he contrasted that with her 2026 mayoral line to NBC LA: “we need to maintain the size of our police force.”

“Was it, you know, wokeness rising up everywhere in 2020 that led you to say that?”

Raman’s answer was basically that governing happened. After five years in office, she said the city has to “respond to calls for help from the public,” and if 911 calls are not answered quickly, “we lose the faith of Angelenos.”

Then came the real admission, “We don’t have an alternative crisis response system built out citywide.”

Raman still wants unarmed crisis response, but admits the current system is “patchwork,” poorly integrated with 911, and can leave people on hold for “50 minutes.”
Read 9 tweets
Stu Smith Profile picture
May 12
🚨 Los Angeles Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez says her office built a “community defense network” to respond to federal immigration raids.

She also says her office invested $500,000 in rental assistance and $400,000 in food assistance, argues DSA should become a bigger “political home,” and claims LA activists were “literally battling to prevent martial law.”

At a recent DSA-LA panel, “socialists in office” from Los Angeles, Chicago, and Minnesota explained how they use public office to advance movement politics, anti-ICE organizing, mutual aid, and attacks on the Democratic establishment.

I break it all down in my latest for @CityJournal!
These officials aren’t just doing constituent service. They’re using public office to build and protect DSA-aligned movements, steering resources, legal support, and government legitimacy toward a narrower activist base. That’s clientelism. city-journal.org/article/democr…
DSA-LA’s own writeup frames Eunisses Hernandez as the model “socialist in office”: using City Council power for anti-police crisis response, immigration defense, tenant protections, food distribution, and attacks on LAPD funding. That is movement politics through public office. Image
Read 4 tweets

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