April 20 has become a national day of celebration for the hedonistic cannabis subculture, but it has also long been marked by the radical right and Nazi-nostalgists around the world for unsavory reasons. It now emerges that Trump's Inauguration Day executive order declaring a state of emergency on the southern border also set a deadline of April 20 for a joint Pentagon-Homeland Security recommendation on whether to invoke the Insurrection Act. This has sparked much speculation that Trump will immediately do so, declaring martial law and consolidating a dictatorship... this weekend. How likely is this, and is the date a mere coincidence? In Episode 274 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg breaks it down. 

In Episode 272 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg discusses the Israel-hosted "International Conference on Combatting anti-Semitism" that featured speakers from the European and American neo-fascist (and even anti-Semitic!) far right. The established phenomenon of paradoxical fascist pseudo-anti-fascism has now been joined by anti-Semitic pseudo-anti-anti-Semitism. While Trump's 2019 executive order on anti-Semitism sought to conflate anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, the new posture would actually substitute the prior for the latter entirely as the ideology to be opposed, in all but name. Anti-Semitism is now acceptable as long as it is pro-Israel, fulfilling Zionist founder Theodore Herzl's 1895 prediction: "The anti-Semites will become our most dependable friends, the anti-Semitic countries our allies."

Speaking at an International Conference on Combating Antisemitism held in Jerusalem last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned against "the fires of anti-Semitism" in Europe and blamed stateside campus protests against Israel's bombardment of Gaza on "a systemic alliance between the ultra-progressive left and radical Islam."

Up to 70 have been killed in fighting between forces of Syria's transitional government and apparent loyalists of ousted dictator Bashar Assad. The clashes began March 6 when 15 members of the new government's security forces were killed in ambushes near the town of Jableh in the coastal province of Latakia, heartland of the Alawite minority and stronghold of support for the old regime. (Al Jazeera, BBC News) The transition government had been mobilizing troops to the region since two members of the security forcres were killed in a similar ambush in Latakia's Daatur district two days earlier. (AFP)

In Episode 263 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg deconstructs the moves by the unconstitutional Trump regime to consolidate a dictatorship over the United States—attempting to seize autocratic control over the bureaucracy, and (in a case of fascist pseudo-anti-fascism) weaponizing concern with anti-Semitism to suppress free speech while institutionalizing indifference to (and consciously enflaming) all other forms of racism. And this as Elon Musk (a private-sector oligarch given extra-legal power over government functions) tells a rally of the Nazi-adjacent Alternative für Deutschland that Germany has "too much of a focus on past guilt." It took Hitler mere weeks to establish a dictatorship after coming to power, whereas with Mussolini it took some three years. We shall soon find out how long it will take in the United States—unless the country can find the wherewithal to resist.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) on Nov. 21 issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former defense minister Yoav Gallant, and possibly-deceased Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The court charged Netanyahu and Gallant with using starvation as a method of warfare and accused them of criminal responsibility for murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts in Gaza. Prosecutors said both Israeli officials intentionally deprived Gaza's civilian population of essential supplies and were responsible for attacks against civilians.

Donald Trump has for the first time won the popular vote, and now around an openly fascist program, starting with plans for mass detention of millions of undocumented immigrants. While there are signs of an emergent resistance, there are also undeniable signs of a left-MAGA convergence around a mutual embrace of authoritarian populism, exploiting disaffection from Biden-Harris' criminal support for Israel's genocide in Gaza. In Episode 251 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg stakes stock of this grim juncture for the United States and the world. We also revive our call from 2016 for electoral nullification—the electors refusing to seat Trump. The New York judge in Trump's "hush money" case must immediately impose the maximum sentence of four years in prison, bringing on the needed constitutional crisis, and the Electoral College must do what it was designed to do under the Constitution: bar a dangerous demagogue from the presidency.

With UN aid agencies and humanitarian organizations warning of an "apocalyptic" scenario in North Gaza, the Biden administration faces a lawsuit charging complicity with genocide. The "pause" that the White House has imposed on some arms shipments to Israel by no means absolves the administration of moral (or legal) culpability. However, it may have had the effect of restraining Benjamin Netanyahu's maximalist plans to cleanse the Gaza Strip of Palestinians altogether. President Trump meanwhile recognized Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights, recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and launched the "Abraham Accords"—predicated on betrayal of the Palestinians by the Arab leadership. His 2019 executive order officially embraced the propagandistic conflation of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, and he now calls for complete repression (including by the military) of Palestine solidarity protests. Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law who was his Middle East pointman, is now openly backing the cleansing of Gaza of all Palestinians, while his ultra-Zionist former ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, is an open advocate of Israeli annexation of the West Bank and destruction of al-Aqsa Mosque. As Trump accuses Biden of "holding back" Israel, it is clear that Netanyahu and his most hardline cabinet members like Itamar Ben-Gvir are openly rooting for him—as is the Israel Lobby in DC.