New York City
NYC

Zohran Mamdani and municipal resistance II

As a dictatorship consolidates in Turkey, aspiring strongman Recep Tayip Erdogan is launching a special attack on municipalities, arresting the mayor of Istanbul and removing elected governments in hundreds of cities and towns across the country—mostly in the restive Kurdish east. In the United States, aspiring strongman Donald Trump is now threatening to similarly remove Zohran Mamdani if he becomes mayor of New York, and order a federal take-over of the city government. Border czar Tom Homan says he will “flood the zone” with ICE agents in “sanctuary cities” such as New York and Los Angeles. In Episode 287 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg argues that Trump forcing the issue could accelerate the breaking point in which localities coast-to-coast assert their autonomous powers in repudiation of the fascist-coopted federal leviathan—vindicating Murray Bookchin’s theories of radical municipalism. (Photo: Wyatt Souers/Peoples Dispatch)

Palestine
Gaza

Podcast: Orwell in Gaza

Amid starvation and horrifically escalating atrocities in Gaza, Israel announces plans to build a giant concentration camp on the ruins of Rafah, an evident preparation for forced “transfer” of the Palestinian population from the Strip entirely—an idea Trump enthusiastically embraces. On the West Bank, amid growing settler attacks, more Palestinian land is enclosed behind separation walls built to protect Israeli settlements. Amid all this, Benjamin Netanyahu (wanted for war crimes by the ICC) meets with Trump in Washington to openly discuss the “transfer” plan—and announces that he has nominated the American president for the Nobel Peace Prize. In Episode 286 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg argues that Trump could in fact get get the Nobel prize while facilitating genocide in Gaza and instating a mass detention state in the US—a fitting inauguration of the fascist world order. (Photo: Jaber Jehad Badwan via Wikimedia Commons)

New York City
Zohran

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
Alligator Alcatraz

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)

Syria
Syria

US removes sanctions amid Syria transition

President Donald Trump signed an executive order that terminates the majority of US sanctions imposed on Syria and associated designated persons. Lifting of the sanctions will represent a significant opportunity for the ravaged Syrian economy. Sanctions against people and entities tied to the ousted Bashar Assad regime, terrorist organizations, and human rights abusers will remain in place. While the Syrian government welcomed the relief, the United Nations expressed the need for “genuine political inclusion” during Syria’s political transition. Critics have recently questioned the “promise of real change” in the country after the establishment of an electoral process that does not allow for a direct public vote to seat the new People’s Assembly. (Image of Free Syria flag via Wikimedia Commons)

Iran
Frieda Afary

Podcast interview: Iranian-American activist Frieda Afary

In Episode 284 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg interviews Frieda Afary of the blog Iranian Progressives in Translation, author (most recently) of Socialist Feminism: A New Approach, and a longtime voice for democratic-secular opposition movements in Iran. How is the situation of Iran’s civil resistance complicated by the US-Israeli air-strikes on the country, and how should progressives in the West respond? Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon.

Iran
Udeid

Iran’s retaliation: choreographed charade?

Two days after the US carried out air-strikes against Iran’s nuclear sites in what is being dubbed Operation Midnight Hammer, Iran launched missiles at al-Udeid air base in Qatar, headquarters for US Central Command’s regional operations and host to some 8,000 US troops. The US said nearly all the missiles were intercepted and there were no casualties. In a post on TruthSocial, President Trump shortly later claimed a ceasefire between Israel and Iran has been reached, with Israeli media reporting that the truce was brokered by Qatar. Sources also told Reuters that Iran had tipped off Qatar authorities before the attack, who then warned the US—accounting for the light damage and raising the possibility that, as in US-Iran brinkmanship of early 2020, the supposed Iranian retaliation was choreographed to allow Tehran to save face. The US, Israel and Iran alike are now all claiming victory, and it remains unclear how seriously Tehran’s nuclear capabilities have in fact been degraded. (Image of al-Udeid air base: Wikimedia Commons)

Iran
Iran Protests

Podcast: neither Jewish State nor Islamic Republic II

With Israel’s criminal air-strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites releasing radioactive contamination, Bibi Netanyahu cynically invokes the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protest movement that shook Iran for months from September 2022. Of course nothing is less conducive to pro-democracy civil resistance in Iran than to have this cause associated with the foreign power that is bombing the country’s territory—and is itself oppressing the Palestinians with biblical justifications. In Episode 282 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg again advocates a neither/nor position that rejects the militaristic and reactionary regimes of both Zionism and political Islam, and looks to a secular order in the Middle East. (Photo: Ottawa protest in support of Iranian uprising, via Wikimedia Commons)

Iran
Iran

UN urges restraint as Israel strikes Iran nuclear sites

UN Secretary-General AntĂłnio Guterres urged both Iran and Israel to exercise “maximum restraint” amid a sudden escalation between the two states following Israeli attacks on Iran’s nuclear installations. Condemning the Israeli strikes, the statement from the secretary-general’s office expressed concerns about a wider conflagration throughout the Middle East, warning that “a descent into deeper conflict” would be “a situation that the region can hardly afford.” (Map: PCL)

Watching the Shadows
guantanamo

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
National Guard

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
ICC

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)