North America

Europe

Podcast: Alaska 2025 = Munich 1938?

Russia’s irredentist claims on its former holding Alaska have provided fodder for comedians, but the stakes at the Trump-Putin meeting in the Last Frontier are no laughing matter. Despite the escalating mutual nuclear threats between Washington and Moscow, Trump’s call for a Russia-Ukraine “land-swap” obviously means Kyiv being forced to accept Moscow’s annexation of much of its territory in exchange for the return of other pieces its own territory illegally occupied by Russia. Meanwhile, Moscow sends drones to threaten NATO member Lithuania, which sits on the critical corridor to the Russian exclave (and tactical missile outpost) of Kaliningrad. Germany has responded by sending troops to the Baltic country—its first post-war foreign deployment. Appeasement of aggression failed to win peace at Munich in 1938, and there’s no reason to hope it will in Alaska today. But the difference is that the contending powers today have nuclear weapons. In Episode 291 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg takes an unflinching look. (Map via Wikipedia)

North America

MAGA-fascism and anti-Semitic pseudo-anti-anti-Semitism II

The ideological enforcer of MAGA-fascism in American higher education (just met with craven capitulation by Columbia and Brown University) is the Trump regime’s Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism. Purporting to act on behalf of Jewish students, the Trump regime simultaneously attacks policies to promote campus diversity. This replicates the historical function of anti-Semitism—setting up Jews to take the hit for for the oppressive policies of (overwhelmingly) non-Jewish rulers. The perverse fascist pseudo-anti-fascism of the Trump regime has now become anti-Semitic pseudo-anti-anti-Semitism. This cynical feigned opposition to anti-Semitism is especially dangerous when actual anti-Semitism is very much in evidence—not least by the Trump regime itself, over and over! Yet the ever-more egregious manifestations of Jew-hatred are increasingly weaponized by the political right—and ignored or even normalized by the ostensible “left.” In Episode 289 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg takes some encouragement from the growing ranks of Jewish voices breaking with the pro-Israel consensus to protest the Gaza genocide—while being clear in drawing the line against anti-Semitism. (Image: APE)

New York City

Trump Justice Department sues NYC over Sanctuary City law

President Donald Trump’s Justice Department filed a complaint against New York City, its Mayor Eric Adams, and other officials over the municipality’s Sanctuary City laws, charging that they are unconstitutional and violate federal immigration enforcement statutes. In a press statement in response to the complaint, Adams distanced himself from his own city’s sanctuary laws, saying they “go too far when it comes to dealing with those violent criminals on our streets.” He said that he has “urged the [City] Council to reexamine them… So far, the Council has refused.” (Photo via TripAdvisor)

New York City

Zohran Mamdani and municipal resistance

Amid an amusingly paranoid reaction from the MAGA right, Donald Trump is threatening to have Zohran Mamdani denaturalized and deported under the archaic Cold War-era Communist Control Act if he continues with New York’s “sanctuary city” policy as mayor. A Justice Department memo has already set the machinery for “denaturalization” of citizens in motion. But the Islamophobic, xenophobic and old-school Red Scare backlash to Mamdani’s political rise could provide the breaking point in which localities coast-to-coast refuse to cooperate with Trump’s fascist agenda—vindicating Murray Bookchin’s theories of radical municipalism. In Episode 285 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg argues that Mamdani’s ascendance, whatever the limitations of his personal politics, heightens the contradictions in American society in a salubrious way, and may even open revolutionary possibilities. (Photo: Jim Naureckas/Flickr via The Jewish Angle)

North America

Congress approves Trump’s mass deportation force

Donald Trump’s draconian immigration policies are to get a massive injection of cash thanks to the omnibus budget bill that the president signed into law on July 4. The bill includes over $170 billion in funding for new detention centers, deportation operations, border wall construction, and other anti-immigration initiatives. While this outlay is to be spread out over five years, critics point out that it surpasses the annual military budgets of any country on Earth except for the US and China. The bill, which narrowly passed in the House with no Democratic support, represents a massive shift of funds from basic social programs such as Medicare to Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE), whose budget will now overshadow that of the FBI. The ICE detention budget is to now outstrip that of the federal Bureau of Prisons, aiming at capacity to hold over 100,000 detainees. (Image: Department of Homeland Security via Florida Phoenix)

New York City

Podcast: Zohran Mamdani and the weaponization of anti-Semitism

New York City’s mayoral race has become embroiled in the national and global dilemmas, with progressive candidate Brad Lander getting arrested by ICE and progressive frontrunner Zohran Mamdani being aggressively baited as an anti-Semite by the campaign of the overall frontrunner, disgraced former governor Andrew Cuomo. Joining Cuomo in this propaganda offensive, not surprisingly, is the pro-Israel doxxing operation Canary Mission. In the current fraught atmosphere, this is a serious matter; Mamdani has received death threats and his campaign is boosting security measures. In Episode 283 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg examines the accusations against Mamdani that have been hyped by the New York Post and even the supposedly more objective Politico, and weighs them against Mamdani’s own responses. (Photo: CounterVortex)

Watching the Shadows

Trump plans transfer of thousands of migrants to Gitmo

President Donald Trump’s administration plans to increase the number of undocumented migrants being transferred to the US Naval facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, according to government documents obtained by the Washington Post. The documents state that 9,000 undocumented immigrants are currently being vetted for transfer to Guantánamo, with the first transfers to begin this week. (Photo: Spc. Cody Black/WikiMedia via Jurist)

North America

California sues Trump admin over National Guard deployment

California filed suit against the Trump administration, asserting that its activation and deployment of the state National Guard to quell protests in Los Angeles is unconstitutional. The suit asks the US District Court for the Northern District of California to halt President Donald Trump’s “unlawful militarization” of Los Angeles. Calling Trump’s actions an abuse of power that needs to be ended, Gov. Gavin Newsom further described the administration’s move as “an unmistakable step toward authoritarianism.” (Photo: US Northern Command via Wikimedia Commons)

Watching the Shadows

State Department imposes sanctions on ICC judges

The US Department of State imposed sanctions on on four individuals serving as judges on the International Criminal Court (ICC) for their involvement with the ICC’s investigations into the US and Israel. The sanctions were imposed pursuant to Executive Order No. 14,203, “Imposing Sanctions on the International Criminal Court,” which President Donald Trump signed in February in response to the ICC’s warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant. The stated purpose of the order was to underline the position that the US and Israel are not within the jurisdiction of the ICC under the Rome Statute, and therefore any investigation into the actions of the two countries is invalid. (Photo: OSeveno/WikiMedia)

Watching the Shadows

Trump issues new ‘travel ban’ proclamation

President Donald Trump issued a proclamation implementing a nearly full travel ban on nationals from a dozen countries, severely restricting potential entry into the United States. The proclamation is based on an executive order issued on Trump’s first day in office that laid the foundation for the administration to enact extensive immigration controls. Commentators have harshly criticized the ban, pointing out that it disproportionately affects Muslim-majority and African countries. Amnesty International’s secretary general Agnes Callamard lambasted Trump for the action, calling it “discriminatory, racist and downright cruel.” The restrictions bear a striking resemblance to Trump’s 2017 travel ban, which blocked travel to the United States from seven Muslim-majority countries. (Photo: Minneapolis protest of 2018 Supreme Court decision upholding Trump’s first travel ban. Credit: Fibonacci Blue/Flickr)

North Africa

Podcast: MAGA-fascism and the struggle in Libya

Since alarming reports broke that Trump is preparing deportation flights to Libya, the plan has happily been put on hold by the courts—as well as denied by both of Libya’s two rival governments. But Libya, like El Salvador, was clearly chosen because of its horrific human rights record, with a UN investigation characterizing its treatment of detained migrants as crimes against humanity. A migrant detention center was even bombed in the inter-factional fighting in Libya six years ago, killing scores of inmates. And news of US plans to send detainees there comes just as a new round of fighting has broken out in Tripoli—involving a militia headed by the warlord “Gheniwa,” who has himself been implicated in atrocities against migrants. Bill Weinberg raises the alarm in Episode 278 of the CounterVortex podcast. (Map: Perry-Castañeda Library)

North America

MAGA-fascism, Orwell and the cannabis stigma

Trump is pointing to Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s tattoos to justify his indefinite detention without charge in the ultra-oppressive Salvadoran prison gulag. These notoriously include a cannabis leaf, demonstrating the continued propaganda utility of the “Reefer Madness” stigma, even as a multi-million dollar legal industry emerges. But the White House actually added the characters “MS13” (name of the notorious Salvadoran gang) to the shot of Abrego Garcia’s knuckles in a crude photoshop job—despite transparent denials from Trump. Lubricating the emerging transnational mass detention program with this Orwellian post-truth stratagem, the Trump regime meanwhile moves toward actual deportation of US citizens. Bill Weinberg raises the alarm in Episode 277 of the CounterVortex podcast. (Photo: Donald Trump/Truth Social as seen, e.g., on CNN)